Philips Magnavox Videogames and the Entertainment Revolution Trigger Happy - Manual (Page 257)

Trigger Happy
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A really successful character is not just a
moneymaker for software developers, either: as we’ve
seen, it enables hardware companies to sell consoles.
Witness the fact that Nintendo’s N64 machine was
delayed for a whole year while the finishing touches
were put to the game Super Mario 64. Good characters
become extremely valuable “properties” in the industry.
Sega’s Megadrive took off on the back of Sonic the
Hedgehog, and the massive financial success of British
publisher Eidos is largely thanks to Lara Croft.
The first videogame “character” of all was Pac-
Man (1980). Before this epoch-making game, the
player controlled spaceships, gun turrets or other
mechanical devices. Suddenly, though, the player of
Pac-Man controlled a being: an animated, eating thing.
The game’s designer, Toru Iwatani, says that he got the
idea for Pac-Man’s form after eating a slice of pizza,
and seeing the shape that was left. Then: “I designed
Pac-Man to be the simplest character possible, without
any features such as eyes or limbs. Rather than defining
the image of Pac-Man for the player, I wanted to leave
that to each player’s imagination.”