[HN Gopher] Where did you go, Ms. Pac-Man?
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Where did you go, Ms. Pac-Man?
Author : glhaynes
Score : 128 points
Date : 2024-06-17 20:02 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.thrillingtalesofoldvideogames.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.thrillingtalesofoldvideogames.com)
| busterarm wrote:
| In the words of one Johnny Blue
| Jeans...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqZo3pC6h68
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| I never noticed that none of the official art for Ms. Pac-Man
| includes her beauty mark, which is kinda key to the sprite. It's
| the only thing that distinguishes her from regular Pac-Man other
| than the bow.
| happyopossum wrote:
| > It's the only thing that distinguishes her from regular Pac-
| Man other than the bow.
|
| And the lips, and the eyes. Literally everything except the
| yellow partial circle is differentiated.
| blueflow wrote:
| They took a character without gender characteristics, slapped
| lipstick and a ribbon on it and called it a woman.
|
| What does this tell us about society.
| Kerb_ wrote:
| That gender is a social construct with abstractions used to
| simplify expression when creating fictional characters?
| DowagerDave wrote:
| Isn't that more a comment on 8-bit graphics resolution? If
| you want to question society's relationship with gender I'd
| examine Lara Croft.
| blueflow wrote:
| Hm, is the "ribbon & lipstick = woman" part not
| bothersome to you?
| Kerb_ wrote:
| Nah, Ms. Pac Man absolutely slays. Lara Croft is
| unnecessarily sexualized. I'm definitely going to be
| unbothered by the first one if we're gonna ignore the
| second.
| blueflow wrote:
| I never played Lara Croft so i wouldn't know. I think you
| would consider the Avengers Ensemble funny with gender
| roles swapped: https://i1.wp.com/www.comicsbeat.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2011...
| toast0 wrote:
| She's got one in the marquee. But not the side art. But it's a
| lot better than the original Pac Man art.
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Love the side and base art. It's got such a cabaret vibe.
| Like the ghosts were supposed to be carrying her but at the
| last minute they decided to switch the arms to be neutral.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Totally OT but: Godverdomme, why can't I right click those images
| of vintage ads :((((.
| waltbosz wrote:
| I hate when that happens.
|
| Run this code in your JS console to get an array of the urls to
| the 3 ads. Array.from(document.querySelectorAll
| ('img')).map(o=>o.src).filter(o=>o.includes('flyer'))
|
| Or this to get the urls of all the images.
| Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('img')).map(o=>o.src)
| crtasm wrote:
| You may like to try https://github.com/kubuzetto/behind
| johnchristopher wrote:
| I should have the reflex to try things like that in the
| console more often.
| joezydeco wrote:
| You can visit the Arcade Flyers Museum for legit downloadable
| versions. It's probably where the author got them from in the
| first place.
|
| https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Thanks !
| crtasm wrote:
| If you mean you can't right-click at all, try holding shift.
|
| But there's no 'view image', so install the wonderful Behind!
| extension: https://github.com/kubuzetto/behind
| johnchristopher wrote:
| Ooooh thanks, I was so hell bent on complaining that I didn't
| even try ff extensions and other tricks.
| masswerk wrote:
| My favorite variant is probably Pac-Gal [1] (a hack from 1981,
| sometimes also attributed Uchida, 1982) - it doesn't get more
| '80s than this.
|
| [1] https://www.gamesdatabase.org/game/arcade/pac-gal
| toast0 wrote:
| > After all, this would be like if Nintendo re-released a Super
| Mario game and swapped out Princess Peach for a Princess
| Pineapple or Princess Pumpkin and just acted like it wasn't
| weird.
|
| Yeah, that'd be weird, but swapping Princess Peach for Princess
| Toadstool was fine?
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Mario 64 attempted to bridge this gap. Her last name is
| Toadstool (or maybe it's her title?) and her first name is
| Peach.
|
| What really happened, IIRC is that she was Princess Peach in
| the Japanese games and in the original translations they called
| her Princess Toadstool
| NeoTar wrote:
| Very much like Dr Robotnik (western) becoming Dr. Eggman
| (Japanese) in Sonic titles since the late 90's. In this case
| Eggman is played as an offensive nickname Sonic has given Dr.
| Robotnik.
| NeoTar wrote:
| I believe that in Mario lore they are explicitly the same
| character - either her name is "Peach Toadstool" (i.e. its
| surname and first name), or the Princess Toadstool is a title -
| like how the Prince of Wales, Queen Mother, and Princess Royal
| are all titles in the contemporary British monarchy.
| kibwen wrote:
| _" In Japan, her name has always been Princess Peach (pichiJi
| Pichi-hime), but in the West, she was originally known as
| "Princess Toadstool", due to Nintendo of America renaming her
| when localizing Super Mario Bros., feeling that "Peach" was
| irrelevant to the theme of the Mushroom Kingdom."_
|
| https://www.mariowiki.com/Princess_Peach#Name
| dragontamer wrote:
| Mario saves Pauline in Donkey Kong / original game, and Pauline
| didn't come back into mainstream Mario games until Super Mario
| Odyssey (2017).
|
| Princess Toadstool / Princess Peach seem to be the same
| character, much like Bowser / King Koopa, or Dr. Eggman vs Dr.
| Robotnik. The strange changing of names over the years has
| happened to other characters, but I think in-game cannon is
| that Princess Peach truly is Princess Toadstool.
|
| -----------
|
| Still, with Princess Rosalina in Super Mario Galaxy, I'd say
| that Mario has definitely tried the "Princess Swap" move
| already.
|
| Or really... Pauline was already swapped out for Princess
| Toadstool.
| NeoTar wrote:
| Pauline comes back in Super Mario Odyssey as the mayor of New
| Donk city.
|
| And the Super Mario Land (Gameboy) series introduced Princess
| Daisy as a potential love interest- she's now a mainstay of
| the series and often romantically linked with Luigi.
| Dwedit wrote:
| Donkey Kong '94 (Game Boy) brought back Pauline.
|
| Donkey Kong '94 is also about as close as you can get to
| being a Mario Game without actually being considered a Mario
| Game.
| toast0 wrote:
| > Mario saves Pauline in Donkey Kong
|
| Jumpman saves Pauline in Donkey Kong.
| mrob wrote:
| He's called Jumpman in the operator's manual, but I'm not
| aware of any official material intended for the general
| public that uses that name.
| tmtvl wrote:
| Fun tidbit: while we all know Mario is a plumber from
| Brooklyn, Jumpman is in fact a carpenter.
| aleph_minus_one wrote:
| > Still, with Princess Rosalina in Super Mario Galaxy, I'd
| say that Mario has definitely tried the "Princess Swap" move
| already.
|
| In Super Mario Land, instead Princess Daisy appeared.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| This strange name translation sometimes just due to
| misunderstanding. When they translate the hulk tv in 1960, the
| guy mistook the doctor meant medical doctors. I always confused
| why there is no medical thing involved. Then Dr strange come
| along. The translator thought it is a phd doctor.
|
| Anywhere for lady name, you would expect colony will be good.
| But queen was translated wrongly as well. Hong Kong has a
| king's road and queen's road. The queen road is wrongly
| translated as king console instead queen. And the road is in
| the center of occupation as well, cutting thru Central. Well.
|
| Translation is hard.
| jmull wrote:
| Ms. was a better game.
| crawsome wrote:
| The Drawn Together reference in the article was totally
| unexpected but welcome.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Huh. I feel like a Ms Pac-Man/Galaga multigame in the corner of a
| laundromat or restaurant is really the most common way for anyone
| to run into Pac-Man now, and yet here's Namco trying to retcon
| her out of existence.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I think the omnipresence of Ms. Pac-Man is a US only thing, I'm
| not sure the cabinet was even released elsewhere. So the most
| common for you and me, but not most people.
| nikau wrote:
| There was one in a supermarket in Australia when I was a kid
| alt0_ wrote:
| Not from US and this is the first time of my life I even
| heard of Ms. Pac-Man
| tessellated wrote:
| Was skiing in Maria Alm, Austria when I was a kid (~late
| '80s, early '90s). Hotel vis-a-vis Wilder Kaiser mountain had
| a Ms. Pac-Man and a Ghosts'n'Goblins cabinet.
| cgriswald wrote:
| Definitely not. The most likely place is at home or on their
| phone.
|
| The most recent new Pac-Man release was in 2022. The longest
| gap in a release was between 1987 and 1993. Since then there
| has been a release every year or three. These are specifically
| Pac-Man titles and not games with Pac-Man in them (Mario Kart
| has a Pac-Man outfit you can unlock with a Pac-Man amiibo) and
| not including compilation software packages.
| LocalH wrote:
| Ms. Pac-Man isn't Namco's, so they don't really give a shit
| mattigames wrote:
| A few years ago I made a pac-man clone with unity for android
| where the only difference was that you controled Pac-man with
| your left thumb and Ms Pac-man with your right thumb, called Pac-
| men if I recall correctly, it was a bit frustating but the
| innovative mechanics was a bit of fun by itself, both could eat
| ghost when powered-up, the ghosts movement logic was the classic
| one too (so it only took into account one the first pac-man to
| chose paths), not much later it was taken down from the play
| store for trademark infrigement, in my naiveness I assumed nobody
| care about such thing due beign such an old game and forgot to
| check beforehand, boy was I wrong. I considered changed the
| sprites and release again with a different name/ip but lazyness
| took the best of me, probably wouldn't have catched anybodys
| atentton with some other name anyway.
| Physkal wrote:
| Drawn together was so good I wish it had more of a following, it
| deserved more seasons.
| ndiddy wrote:
| There's a good summary of the legal issues surrounding Ms. Pac-
| Man here: https://pacman.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Ms._Pac-
| Man_legal_... .
|
| Essentially, the game was originally created as an unofficial
| upgrade to Pac-Man arcade games by a third party, GCC. GCC then
| licensed Ms. Pac-Man to Namco, with a contract stipulating that
| they were due royalties for any Ms. Pac-Man coin operated games,
| as well as any electronic distribution of Ms. Pac-Man. Namco then
| forgot about the contract after Ms. Pac-Man went out of
| production in the mid-80s, meaning that the extremely broad
| "electronic distribution" term was never renegotiated.
|
| In the early 2000s, Namco started releasing Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga
| multigame cabinets without paying GCC's successors royalties, so
| they sued Namco. The arbitrator decided that "coin operated game"
| meant that GCC's successors were due royalties from any Ms. Pac-
| Man machine with a coin slot, but not machines without coin slots
| meant for home use. More importantly, they decided that because
| the contract defined "electronic distribution" as "any use in
| which the game is broadcast or in any other way transmitted to
| other receiving devices", this meant that GCC's successors were
| due royalites for rereleases of Ms. Pac-Man on any device with
| internet connectivity.
|
| Around 2018, Namco reached out to GCC's successors in an attempt
| to buy out their royalty rights. Before negotiations completed,
| AtGames, a company that mostly focuses on rereleasing old games,
| significantly outbid Namco. Namco contacted AtGames saying that
| if AtGames didn't rescind their offer, Namco would permanently
| stop licensing their titles to AtGames and ensure that "there is
| zero income stream delivered pursuant [to the GCC] agreement".
|
| Since that point, the only new Ms. Pac-Man rereleases have been
| standalone games that fall under the "not coin operated"
| loophole. In 2022, they delisted most existing Ms. Pac-Man
| rereleases, likely to cut AtGames off from receiving any Ms. Pac-
| Man royalties at all. Additionally, Namco has started editing the
| Ms. Pac-Man character out of rereleases of other Pac-Man games in
| favor of a new "Pac-Mom" character (likely as an attempt to
| reduce awareness of Ms. Pac-Man to further devalue AtGames's
| purchase).
| kristopolous wrote:
| I wonder if the copyright covers all female gendered Pac-Man
| characters?
|
| I can't imagine the IP is so precious that consumers wouldn't
| accept a "pac-sis" sister in her place or some doughy-eyed
| infant version "pac-girl" with a pacifier and bib.
|
| I'd have to assume such obvious derivatives are covered. But
| maybe not?
|
| edit, apparently, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Pac-Man
| right ... where's that IP now?
|
| Also this is apparently some wild hybrid where you can flow
| between pinball and the video screen
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEX7TqjW3nU
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| > I wonder if the copyright covers all female gendered Pac-
| Man characters?
|
| The original article discusses Pac-Mom, so presumably not.
| lmm wrote:
| Whether Pac-Mom is a copyright-infringing design may just
| be a question that hasn't hit the courts yet.
| RodgerTheGreat wrote:
| FYI, the figure of speech is "doe-eyed", as in having large
| eyes evocative of a female deer, not "dough-eyed".
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| So dough-eyed, is the look of an overnighted baker, who got
| into a fistfight?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| An overnight baker with bag-uettes under their eyes.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| As much as I've never heard of, don't care about, and had no
| particular trust in the "Pac-Man Museum+" videogame, I am
| nonetheless disappointed in them for altering their history
| without credit or footnote. I expect more from Museum-branded
| shovelware.
| bigfishrunning wrote:
| Yeah, it seems by naming the game "Museum", they're trying to
| appeal to a preservation angle, but then modifying the games
| seems to undermine the point
| dwighttk wrote:
| We're gonna make a game called Pac-Man museum! Yay!
|
| Later: _legal says we can't use Ms Pac-Man_
| dfxm12 wrote:
| FWIW, the original "museum" games by Namco (in the PSX era)
| were set in a virtual museum, A 3D space that you walked
| through in first person perspective. Each game was set in its
| own gallery with a bunch of paraphernalia hanging around it
| that you could look at and get more info about. I don't think
| preservation was implied, it was just a skeuomorphic display
| metaphor. The name stuck, even if the UI changed.
|
| I enjoyed the whimsy of them.
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