Graphic artist Nicholas Caballero, of Paraguay, noted on Twitter Wednesday that the anthropomorphic Ms. Pac-Man appearing in 1984’s Pac-Land is instead what Bandai Namco calls Pac-Mom: She wears a pink hat, gloves, and heels instead of a red bow, orange gloves, and red boots. Baby Pac has been palette-swapped, for good measure, replacing her bow with a flower and removing her pacifier.
Why is that? Back in 2019, when Bandai Namco sued AtGames, the makers of throwback mini-consoles and arcade cabinets, whose work on a 2016 Genesis/Mega Drive for Sega didn’t win them any friends. Among other things, Bandai Namco alleged that AtGames had interfered in the publisher’s negotiations with Ms. Pac-Man’s original creators — a group of seven MIT classmates calling themselves General Computer Corporation — to buy out their royalty rights.
Lo and behold, AtGames itself ended up buying that royalty interest, meaning that, going forward, if Bandai Namco released anything with Ms. Pac-Man (or Baby Pac) in it, it would owe residuals to AtGames, the people they were now suing. (Note: These rights are to be paid whenever the work is used; Bandai Namco still has full ownership and control of Ms. Pac-Man as an intellectual property, and can unilaterally make any product including her.)
Bandai Namco alleged some other unauthorized uses of their intellectual property; AtGames said Bandai Namco was punishing it for a private deal with rights-holders who weren’t happy Bandai Namco weren’t making anything with Ms. Pac-Man in it. The lawsuit was settled in November 2020, but AtGames still owns the royalty interest in Ms. Pac-Man.
