PAC-MAN celebrates 40 years of chomping with Japanese producer Ken Ishii
He's taking over the world again, one bite at a time
40 years of chomping has earned PAC-MAN the accolade as one of the world’s most recognisable brands, with an apparent global brand recognition statistic of 90% — this means you may have to unfriend that one out of ten people who are clueless.
PAC-MAN was born on May 22, 1980, and quickly became one of the most universally recognised icons in the arcade gaming world. He fuelled and then conquered that world. Today, he still conquers the entertainment world, as the brand continues to grow and evolve. For his 40th birthday, PAC-MAN has turned to Japanese electronic and dance producer Ken Ishii, who would have been around ten years old when the little chomper was born, for a special anniversary collaboration with a music compilation.
Music has always been a vital pillar to the PAC-MAN brand, starting out with the hit song ‘PAC-MAN Fever’, and then an array of brand and entertainment collaborations throughout the 80s and 90s. For the 40th Anniversary, Ken Ishii has produced three tracks using the game’s original sounds and 8 bit melodies, and has also created an original theme song for the new release.
Beyond the music created by Japanese studio legend Ken Ishii, PAC-MAN has fully immersed himself across the entertainment world, including offering his own mazes to Minecraft users, writing his own book that unfolds his personal story, and unraveling an AI character created by NVIDIA that was trained on 50,000 rounds of the entire game.
The hype is strong for PAC-MAN’s 40th Anniversary Collaboration series — new tracks will be released every week between May 22, 2020 and July 24, 2020 as part of a segmented campaign.
While you wait for Volumes 2 and 3, you can listen to PAC-MAN 40th ANNIVERSARY COLLABORATION Vol.1 below.
