Ms Pac-Man has been removed and replaced from the upcoming Pac-Man World remake, angering many long-time fans of the character. The move to snub her role in the game comes as Namco begins to fall into legal troubles.
The long-time Pac-Man character ‘Ms Pac-Man’ has been replaced by ‘Pac-Mom’ for Namco’s newest game in the franchise, following a long-term dispute over the character’s royalties. In the original version of the 1999 PlayStation game, the player traverses through six worlds to save six characters, one of which is Ms Pac-Man.
Namco has been trying to avoid using the character at all lately however, as Ms Pac-Man isn’t even their invention.
The character was designed by Midway and a group of programmers at GCC, and as a result of Namco’s use of the character, GCC is asking for unpaid royalties. The issue got worse in 2019 when retro-console developer AtGames decided to release a Ms Pac-Man mini arcade, leading Namco to sue them. AtGames then purchased the character from GCC.
Bandai Namco has since been avoiding Ms Pac-Man so that the royalties dispute doesn’t blow out of hand anymore than it already has. But the fans clearly aren’t happy. Here are some reactions on Twitter to the new Pac-Man’s World advertisement:
“I’m all for creators getting the credit and money they deserve but the situation with Ms Pac-Man is complicated and messed up. It’s led to Namco simply avoiding any use of the character whenever possible. There needs to be a new deal that leads to the character being used again.”
“Welp it’s official. You knew AtGames F**KED it up so badly on the Ms.Pac-Man rights so much so that Namco will go as far as replacing Ms.Pac-Man to Pac-Mom right down to her looks from the 1999 Playstation 3D model to the new Pac-Man World Re-Pac model.”
“While I’m sure the Pac-Man World remake is going to be good I can’t help but get annoyed by the Namco and AtGames situation regarding the use of Ms Pac-Man. Is it really that hard to use a beloved character or are we going to be stuck with Pac-Mom?”
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