Join the Pac: How Licensing Has Leveled Up PAC-MAN for the Last 40 Years

Yasuo Miyakawa, chief PAC-MAN officer, and chief executive, Bandai Namco Entertainment, highlights the ever-lasting appeal of PAC-MAN at Festival of Licensing.

License Global

October 8, 2020

If you were to show a group of total strangers a picture of PAC-MAN, nearly all of them would know the yellow pizza-shaped avatar. The game and character have become synonymous with video games since PAC-MAN’s debut 40 years ago. In fact, according to Bandai Namco Entertainment, PAC-MAN is known by 98 percent of people in the U.S.

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The brand's universal fame makes PAC-MAN an obvious choice for licensing and one that Yasuo Miyakawa, chief PAC-MAN officer and chief executive, Bandai Namco Entertainment, highlighted at this year's

Festival of Licensing

During Miyakawa's on-demand session,

Nurturing A Legend: 40 Years of PAC-MAN

, he highlighted how the brand's wide-ranging audience was built into the core of the game and made for a sound choice for a variety of products.

"PAC-MAN was initially made to appeal to a wide audience, both young and old, male and female alike," says Miyakawa during the presentation.

"The characters came to life, adorable and identifiable, making it easy for the characters to find a place in various products."

Now 40 years on, Miyakawa and Bandai Namco are taking the PAC-MAN brand to new heights through licensing. In his session, he spotlighted how PAC-MAN has grown from an arcade cabinet to suits, virtual reality games and all things in between. Leveraging a theme called "Join the PAC," the brand has seen licensees of all shapes sign on to be part of the its licensing program.