I don't think it was exactly moral for Midway to go behand Namco's back, but at the same time, they had lightning in a bottle with Pacman, and needed a follow-up right away to keep the momentum going. Since Namco wouldn't have Super Pacman ready for at least a year or so, combined with the fact that Ms Pacman was such a worthy successor, I find it hard to blame Midway for going in the direction that they did.
Things were different in the 80s. Namco didn't lose out since they were being paid, and rolled with it since everyone involved were doing well. Thing that sucks is that now were getting screwed by missing out on this masterpiece of a game. Id buy a replica cabinet for my apt......maybe one day they will figure out a way to make it happen.
It's just kinda crazy to me that Namco struggled so much to make a successor to Pac-Man. The improvements to Ms. Pac-Man seem so obvious but Namco wasn't seeing it
So, there are a few things you got wrong here. 1. None of Midway's Pac-Man games were released without Namco's consent. Namco approved of all of them, including Jr. Pac-Man. 2. Namco was actually a bit more involved with Ms. Pac-Man than you'd think. When Crazy Otto was pitched to Midway, they immediately contacted Namco about it, to which they not only approved it but wanted it reskinned to an official Pac-Man game. Namco were also the ones that made the in-game sprites for Ms. Pac-Man herself, as Namco did not like the sprites GCC had made for her, which had hair rather than a bow. 3. Namco never terminated their licensing agreement with Midway; it simply expired. 4. Namco having to pay AtGames (and formerly GCC) royalties didn't just apply to arcade releases, but current home console releases too. I don't know everything about this, but I've heard that they have to pay royalties when the game is digitally distributed, and since pretty much ALL games are digitally-distributed now, they haven't been able to rerelease the game on home consoles in a long time. While this is TECHNICALLY unconfirmed, it appears that the royalty rights apply to not just the game, but the character as well, evidenced by both her lack of new appearances and her total replacement in new rereleases and remakes of games that originally had her with the new Pac-Mom character. 5. Namco still *do* acknowledge Ms. Pac-Man, but only in places where they don't have to pay royalties. While rereleases of the original game and appearances in games require royalty payment, it seems merchandise like posters, clothing, and possibly toys are fair game. They also occasionally acknowledge the character on social media with new artwork of her (in a design I'm personally not a fan of, though.) 6. Arcade cabinets technically don't count as having to pay royalties, as long as the cabinet does NOT have a coin slot. This is because their contract with GCC referred to arcade cabinets as "coin-operated machines", meaning if it's not coin-operated, they don't have to pay royalties. Namco have actually taken advantage of this loophole for years. For example, the compilation cabinet, Pac-Man's Pixel Bash, was released as two models, one with and one without a coin slot. Ms. Pac-Man was included only on the one without a coin slot. It's also why more recently we've seen Arcade1UP releases of Ms. Pac-Man.
Technically, if Arcade1Up can do an Arcade Legacy Cabinet or Partycade version of Jr. Pac-Man, they can but they would need permission from whomever owns the rights now. Arcade1Up's Legacy Cabinets do have coin doors but they are faux, meaning that they are non workable. It would be nice if they are Pac-Man's Pixel Bash were to have Jr. Pac-Man but you know, anything can happen.
@@joerubi6249 I hope one day they'd buy the rights to the Jr. Pac-Man game. Right now it seems getting the full rights to Ms. Pac-Man seems like the bigger priority, which is understandable.
From my understanding the rights thing was coin games. The old agreement was coin powered games so any version not running on coins is 100% legal they are just being petty. Back in the day seeing as most arcade games ran on coins the wording was coin games. But when it became possible to sell the game in a form that does not take coins they had to pay nothing.
I'm just a nobody, but one thing i can take to my grave is i was one of the first people to ever play Ms. Pacman...er, Crazy Otto. I was 8 years old in 1981. Sometime that summer or early fall i was in an Arcade in Coeburn, Va. It's early morning so there are just a couple people in there. I was playing Defender when a couple of guys bring in a new game. They had to move a couple of games out of the way to make room for the new cabinet. The owner & the 2 guys are discussing the game and, having died on Defender, I'm now looking over their shoulders at the new game. The owner sees me & says, "Hey kid, try out this game & tell me what you think." It was Crazy Otto! I told them it was cool, although i really wasn't that impressed honestly. The feet were kind of hokey & i brushed it off as a another Pacman knockoff. It wasn't until the Internet & many years later that i realized what had occurred. When Arcade games would come up I would ask people, "Did you ever play a game where Pacman had legs?" Nobody knew what i was talking about. I believe Crazy Otto was only put in 2 or 3 arcades in Virginia & 1 in Chicago for about a month in 1981. The odds that anyone played it in an Arcade & are still alive to tell about it is astronomically low. Changing the name & the sprite to Ms. Pacman really made all the difference. One of the best Arcade games ever made!
You forgot to mention the best part about Jr. Pac-Man, it had the best cut scenes of any Pac-Man game. It was basically a retelling of Romeo and Juliet with Jr. Pac-Man and yum-yum having a forbidden relationship and then running away together.
@@pojr This is partly why I prefer MAME to MiSTer. Some of the games are more faithful in MAME too. You'd think a paid hardware FPGA would always be better, but often isn't.
As James Bond learned decades ago Never Say Never Again. Namco is in Talks with AtGames which at this moment seems to own Jr Pac. About getting all the non Namco Pac titles.
That makes a lot of sense. If AT Games can't release the ones they own because Namco owns the overall IP then it's in Namco's best interest to sit on them in order to pressure ATG to sell outright rather than pay in perpetuity.
The fruits/prizes in Jr. Pac-Man actually do two things: Make dots bigger... and, if allowed to finish their pathing, destroy a power pill. The bigger dots have two features as well: They are slower to eat, yes, but are also worth 50 points each instead of the normal 10. A player with a lot of time on their hands can strategize based on this, to maximize their score in the earlier levels before things get too difficult to bother.
I didn't remember Jr. Pac-Man from the 80's, but when I bought my full sized coin operated Galaga cabinet with the iCade 60-in-1 board, it has Jr Pac-Man. I agree, it's definitely the best of the bunch... and the most challenging.
Back in those days, Video Game Copyright Law and Licensing still had lots of legal gray area and that's sad because it's why Jr. Pac-Man exists in limbo forever. These were the early days before many court cases since then gave us some settled law on those issues. It was a new frontier, literally the Wild-Wild West back then until the Sheriff came to town.
Jr. Pac-Man is available for the 7800 from AtariAge. It's a great port. AtariAge has lots of great ports. I picked the cart up at a show in Vegas about ten years ago, and it remains one of my favorite 7800 games. It's the best way to play Jr. Pac-man.
MsPacMan is still my favorite arcade game. I think it's the perfect balance and fun and simple. I do like Jr. PacMan too... Also, it's a homebrew, but there is a great version of Jr. PacMan for the Atari 7800 console... In fact, there are great homebrew versions of pretty much every classic PacMan game on the 7800.
After the success of Ms. Pacman, Midway should have negotiated for a full licensing of future titles with whatever conditions reasonable. It was obvious that Midway had a terrific feel for the brand. Not having to put your own money into R&D, marketing, and supervising production of the hardware in the 1980's would have been quite an opportunity.
I really like the Commodore 64 port, which had a copyright date of 1988, and stated that "jr pacman is a trademark of namco". I played the heck out of this as a kid. Now I'm taking a closer look at the 5200 version. It might be the closest home conversion of the arcade.
IF this is how it went down, then it was DEFINITELY LAME of midway just bc their games were quote "better" would not be grounds to justify their screwing around namco's back the base game was what mattered, the sequels essentially were just simply some 'reskinning' with game mechanic tweaks that punched it up a notch, sure, credit for creativity, but not full blown rights over the sequels. thats a stretch to think thats even fair, no matter HOW long the originator took to release a sequel b/c in the end, it was never their franchise to begin with. again, definitely LAME
Jr. Pac-Man is one of my favorite games in the entire franchise. Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, and Pac-Mania round out my top 3. Jr. Pac-Man did, by the way, get released on the Atari 2600 in 1986. I have one of the 1988 rereleases.
There was also an Atari 400/800 port that was basically finished, but never released. There's a physical prototype out there that you can buy (if you know where to look) that comes in a very authentic-looking Atari 400/800 cart (with a less than stellar label, though), and it plays on real hardware.
I wouldn't recommend this to the average gamer or even the novice collector. Since the ROMs are floating around the internet and not exactly difficult to find, it's very easy for people to make reproduction carts to pass off as legitimate Atari 8-Bit or 5200 cartridges to those with an uneducated eye. (Read as: Most people.) If you're a serious collector, you can probably find a way to verify authenticity. If you simply want to _play_ it on real hardware, a ROM on a multi-cart with an SD card slot or even a reproduction cart that is acknowledged as a repro is a much cheaper option.
7:55 - Do NOT use "thankfully" and Jack Trammell in the same sentence unless it's about him LEAVING the company. That man did almost nothin good for any company he owned and sold off. Trammell was a shark and nothing else. nuff said?
I was thinking the game might be "Kick". I saw it at the Pac Man tent at the 1982 World's Fair. The game was about keeping Pac Men stacked on a guy's head. There was no maze.
Subscribed, I'm really enjoying your videos, they take me back. In Toronto, it was VERY easy to find a Ms. Pac-Man machine, Pac-Man not so much. However, my favourite was Baby Pac-Man, I loved the pinball/video game combo. Also was a fan of Super Pac Man, probably because both of these went a little easier on your quarter. Pac-Land as well. I rarely got past stage three on Ms Pac Man. I wonder who owned the rights to the Pac-Man cartoon?
I actually have Pac-Man, Puck Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man in my MAME arcade because they're all included in the vertical classics list of the "All Killer, No Filler" compilations. Ms. Pac-Man is unsurprisingly the most played game of all 4.
Ms.PAC Man exist not PAC Mom in my book! It’s a shame we won’t get to play Jr.PAC Man on the Switch & I seriously doubt PAC Man Plus! I was blessed to get my from my Fiancé that I got a Numbskull Ms.PAC Man & now I know why thanks to this fantastic well spoken & well explained young man why the markee doesn’t have the Bally/Namco on it. Dang I would have been pissed if Midway was doing this to me,who wouldn’t?! I am so glad I subscribed to this Channel!
Namco museum 50th anniversary has a locked arcade game that can only be unlocked to get a high score of Mac-Man, or Ms. Pac-Man, I think that hidden arcade is Jr. Pac-Man, I never managed to beat the score to see for myself, but I always thought it was possible, I have a old PC game with Jr Pac-Man included, so I have played it!
I would've never known that Jr. Pac-Man even existed if it weren't for a weird 39 in 1 multicade cabinet I saw once. I at first thought it was some kind of bootleg game when I first saw it cycling on attract mode (I had the same thoughts when I saw Donkey Kong 3 on the attract mode) then later did research and found out it was an actual game of sorts... albeit one with an iffy legal history. Jr. Pac is a cool game though, but you're more likely to find Ms. Pac-Man out in the wild than Jr. Pac-Man.
Great video!! Never knew this story! Very interesting overall. It wasn't cool that Midway pretended Pac Man was theirs, but can't blame them for wanting to do a follow up at the height of Pac mania!👍👍👍
Namco's and midway's problems started with Midway assuming they had the home rights to Pac-Man because they had the arcade rights Pac-Man. There's a really good Bally Astrocade clone of Pac-Man (now called Muncher) which was the best contemporary home version of Pac-Man there. That's just as much a part of the Namco/ Midway saga as Pac-Man was. Also I noticed the historical inaccuracy in Pixels. Namco, Taito and Konami were listed sponsors of the world video game. At the time Midway would have been the distributor of both Namco and Taito games, and Konami was more like a studio not a publisher. Konami released their games through many different American distributors on a title-by-title basis. The most interesting effect of this fallout between the Japanese and the Americans was what they did with the joystick layout because of these World championships that were fictionalized in Pixels. Based on my memory most of the games had ambidexterous. It's that the tournaments were played America they use Americans machines, and most of that all the games were won by Americans. And these machines are ambidextrous and the Japanese believed that was cheating. So between the Namco Midway stuff, about the Astrocade Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and Jr Pac Man, a Japanese accusing Americans of cheating by being able to use either hand, that's was the motivation for a revenge plot. And a lot of this is documented on my website sinistersticks.com , primarily because they're meaner means of revenge was dominating the industry and forever putting the joystick on the left side, explaining why this very day do company made a right-handed stick authorized by Japanese system makers. And I sure how much this affects Play by taking a bunch of random people and beating a champ at Street Fighter 2. This champ whi used to dominate us locally, literally went from hero to zero when facing a right handed joystick. Think about it. The facts all make sense
@@SchardtCinematic Jr. Pacman's defining feature, is its oversized playfield and scrolling screen. Without it, the C64 version doesn't pass muster. You're best to play the excellent Atari 7800 version, the original arcade version (via Mame) ... or the commendable (and official) Atari 2600 port
@txtworld But everything else is there in the game except the scrolling. I don't know why they programmed it that way. But it is still Jr. Pacman to me.
I liked Jr. Pac-Man although the difficulty seems tough. The Atari 2600 version is one of the best games on the Atari 2600. The 2600 version has selectable levels of difficulty.
it sounds like you get a roommate, then they start doing your dishes and cooking you food. it's hard to be mad at them, but they definitely overstepped some boundaries. as far as not owning Jr. Pacman - they weren't involved in the first place. it's like the roommate moving out and taking the TV they bought and then later abandoning it on the curb.
That means, no more ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️⬅️, as a cheat code will no longer be needed to play the original Pac-Man in future Namco classics collection cabinets. This is also why the Konami code (⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️) seems to be more popular these days.
I say that the rights to both Ms. Pac-Man AND Pac-Man, and the remnants of the properties of Midway, as well as Bandai Namco, need to revert to ME, as all of the arguing parties that dared to take action against myself would find out that it is a bad idea.
In Pac-Man 2 on Sega Genesis if you find all the hidden cartridges in the game you can play a unique version of Pac-Jr. It’s nothing like the arcade version and Is a unique game made by Namco just for the Sega Genesis. The Super Nintendo version just has Ms. Pac-Man instead. It's very weird.
another reason why there is no jr is because of decency. in the 80s decency was a big thing and anything with sensitive subject matter including music had to be heavily euphemized and 1 such euphemism in particular was not powerful enough to tame the subject matter that is the number 69 with the song now known as 96 tears. so having a pacman, ms pacman and then pacman jr suggested that there was sex involved. and yes even music was attacked for decency that is how the explicit warning label was made.
Usually you hear about US companies being ripped off by foreign companies... not the other way around. (Now I say that sitting here in the Midwest... It might be the same story "over there" just backwards.
My Boss had a Jr Pacman Arcade and at a Christmas Party I got the high score and the following year I noticed my score was still there. The next year it was gone :( he sold it
That's some great info! I never knew all that legal stuff about those two games. But then again, I get glossy eyed and fall asleep a little when dealing with legal stuff. You made it very interesting though!
Ms Pac Man was way more popular than original because it faster and it seemed like the arcade owner could adjust the speed on it, making it crazy fast. I'm not sure about that though. Jr. wasn't around in the arcades long enough for anyone to get hooked on it and I only saw 1 Baby Pac Man game at the grocery store entrence. That one had so much Japanese style screen clutter no one played it. The only console game I played was the first one and it was terrible.
You do know that the "t" in Namcot stands for Tengen right. They later dropped the "t" cause Tengen was no more. Namcot was shorten for Namco Tengen. Tengen was a development team form from the association with Namco, Atari, Sega, and Midway (known as Bally Midway back then). These same companies also had rights to Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and several other retro arcade games back then which is why you see similar games from some of them.
I come from an alternate reality where Namco contacted Phillips and said, "Go ahead and make some games with our character." and Nintendo contacted Midway. I tell you what,... you should see these awesome Zelda games!!
I think it was wrong for Midway to go forward with a different game based on the original Pac-man characters. Had they approached Namco, and got their permission, then everyone could be satisfied and profitable. I understand Midway felt they had a prerogative to promote their game due to having regional oversight, but in my opinion it is still profiting off of someone else's idea. If I understand correctly, Namco still were paid royalties, so this is okay I suppose, but I don't blame Namco for canceling their contract with Midway and it makes one wonder what could have been had they worked together in unison.
I swear to god that if theres something i fucking hate,it’s that brutal copycat business,whether it was a common practice or not,it’s just unfair, HOWEVER if this case i do make a partial exception because eventrough both gcc or midway did made some pacman clones,they did got eventually permission from namco and they recieved royalty’s for that,but once those companies did kept on continuing doing such practics ,it eventually did cut the last straw of namco and so they broked the contract with midway, Now about all those pacman compelations over those years on all those different systems,whether it’s called namco’s arcade collection,namco’s arcade musuem,namco’s legendary arcade hits,namco’s virtual arcade hits,namco’s 80’s arcade hits,namco’s flashback hits,namco’s super/ultimate/megamix etc,,, arcade hits from the past, To me it’s nothing more then just a last minute aftertout cash grabbing business,they should stop doing that am mean how long would they keep going doing that? What’s next ultimate namco library hits HD ultronic namco library hits for the ps5,xbox s and ps6 and xbox 5??? Phew🤣
VERY questionable to say it is the best PacMan game. The side scrolling doesn't work for a game like PacMan. I just remember dying a lot because I got cornered by an off-screen enemy. Which is bad gameplay. There was no way for me to know that that path would be blocked off once the screen scrolled
Goodafternoon sir. There a code that unlocks Jr Pacman on Pacman 2 for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. I was super hype to figure that out when I was kid. In the mid 1990's. Sir
Great story! Your example of a friend making a game behind your back with your character is not completely accurate. Here is the more accurate version: > if you had a friend who had helped you make your game a multi million dollar success, then made versions of your game without your knowledge but paid you royalties for those games' sales. ...It sounds like a win for Namco. Namco earned more from their pacman franchise without lifting a finger. They had zero risk, they didn't need to hire a programmer, spend to make a new concept, and didn't even spend for marketing... And yet they earned royalties! It should have been a total win.
Yeah, NAMCO's pac sequel kinda sucked, whereas Midway made some classics with the brand. Midway should've approached them and said 'hey, PM is too big to wait this long, let's both make games" and do a contract for rights for the new games
imo, pacman was an intellectual property, but if Namco licensed it to midway. midway had rights to that IP. using those rights, Midway basically tried to build a pac-universe and held on to its agreement with namco for the licensing royalties. I think namco was in the wrong. Midway wanted to build on the pac IP and make more pac stuff and keep the pac franchise hot, and isnt that what you want from a partner? The words pac man and the game play of eating dots in a maze of ghosts were namco ideas and Midway paid royalties to use those ideas and built a franchise of pac games based on that, and I think that is completely fair as long as namco got their share for the trademark use.
Midway shouldn't have been so have been so head strong. Just because... What could we have? V.s. what we could have *(will have) happened? If the great Puck Man was Super-ed and Crazy Otto-ed out, but with a collaboration of the concept. I believe that game could have been awesome. ()been like?
Not sure I understand something...if Jr. Pac-Man is not currently "owned" by any company (i.e. nobody is even acknowledging it's existence) then why can't it be released? It almost sounds like it's now part of public domain.
@@ChicagoMel23 Yep. The rights are likley in a "disputed" state which would require courts to intervene and without a settled matter of ownership, nobody is going to want to risk a lawsuit. Namco already had to deal with that when they forgot to pay the royalties to GCC years ago.
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I don't think it was exactly moral for Midway to go behand Namco's back, but at the same time, they had lightning in a bottle with Pacman, and needed a follow-up right away to keep the momentum going. Since Namco wouldn't have Super Pacman ready for at least a year or so, combined with the fact that Ms Pacman was such a worthy successor, I find it hard to blame Midway for going in the direction that they did.
Things were different in the 80s.
Namco didn't lose out since they were being paid, and rolled with it since everyone involved were doing well. Thing that sucks is that now were getting screwed by missing out on this masterpiece of a game. Id buy a replica cabinet for my apt......maybe one day they will figure out a way to make it happen.
@@JTCT371well it’s not that emulation is such an obscure thing….
It's just kinda crazy to me that Namco struggled so much to make a successor to Pac-Man. The improvements to Ms. Pac-Man seem so obvious but Namco wasn't seeing it
So, there are a few things you got wrong here.
1. None of Midway's Pac-Man games were released without Namco's consent. Namco approved of all of them, including Jr. Pac-Man.
2. Namco was actually a bit more involved with Ms. Pac-Man than you'd think. When Crazy Otto was pitched to Midway, they immediately contacted Namco about it, to which they not only approved it but wanted it reskinned to an official Pac-Man game. Namco were also the ones that made the in-game sprites for Ms. Pac-Man herself, as Namco did not like the sprites GCC had made for her, which had hair rather than a bow.
3. Namco never terminated their licensing agreement with Midway; it simply expired.
4. Namco having to pay AtGames (and formerly GCC) royalties didn't just apply to arcade releases, but current home console releases too. I don't know everything about this, but I've heard that they have to pay royalties when the game is digitally distributed, and since pretty much ALL games are digitally-distributed now, they haven't been able to rerelease the game on home consoles in a long time. While this is TECHNICALLY unconfirmed, it appears that the royalty rights apply to not just the game, but the character as well, evidenced by both her lack of new appearances and her total replacement in new rereleases and remakes of games that originally had her with the new Pac-Mom character.
5. Namco still *do* acknowledge Ms. Pac-Man, but only in places where they don't have to pay royalties. While rereleases of the original game and appearances in games require royalty payment, it seems merchandise like posters, clothing, and possibly toys are fair game. They also occasionally acknowledge the character on social media with new artwork of her (in a design I'm personally not a fan of, though.)
6. Arcade cabinets technically don't count as having to pay royalties, as long as the cabinet does NOT have a coin slot. This is because their contract with GCC referred to arcade cabinets as "coin-operated machines", meaning if it's not coin-operated, they don't have to pay royalties. Namco have actually taken advantage of this loophole for years. For example, the compilation cabinet, Pac-Man's Pixel Bash, was released as two models, one with and one without a coin slot. Ms. Pac-Man was included only on the one without a coin slot. It's also why more recently we've seen Arcade1UP releases of Ms. Pac-Man.
Technically, if Arcade1Up can do an Arcade Legacy Cabinet or Partycade version of Jr. Pac-Man, they can but they would need permission from whomever owns the rights now. Arcade1Up's Legacy Cabinets do have coin doors but they are faux, meaning that they are non workable. It would be nice if they are Pac-Man's Pixel Bash were to have Jr. Pac-Man but you know, anything can happen.
@@joerubi6249 I hope one day they'd buy the rights to the Jr. Pac-Man game. Right now it seems getting the full rights to Ms. Pac-Man seems like the bigger priority, which is understandable.
Namco still *does* Not "do"
Replying so TH-cam will shuffle your comment closer to the top
From my understanding the rights thing was coin games. The old agreement was coin powered games so any version not running on coins is 100% legal they are just being petty. Back in the day seeing as most arcade games ran on coins the wording was coin games. But when it became possible to sell the game in a form that does not take coins they had to pay nothing.
I'm just a nobody, but one thing i can take to my grave is i was one of the first people to ever play Ms. Pacman...er, Crazy Otto.
I was 8 years old in 1981. Sometime that summer or early fall i was in an Arcade in Coeburn, Va. It's early morning so there are just a couple people in there. I was playing Defender when a couple of guys bring in a new game. They had to move a couple of games out of the way to make room for the new cabinet. The owner & the 2 guys are discussing the game and, having died on Defender, I'm now looking over their shoulders at the new game. The owner sees me & says, "Hey kid, try out this game & tell me what you think." It was Crazy Otto! I told them it was cool, although i really wasn't that impressed honestly. The feet were kind of hokey & i brushed it off as a another Pacman knockoff. It wasn't until the Internet & many years later that i realized what had occurred. When Arcade games would come up I would ask people, "Did you ever play a game where Pacman had legs?" Nobody knew what i was talking about. I believe Crazy Otto was only put in 2 or 3 arcades in Virginia & 1 in Chicago for about a month in 1981. The odds that anyone played it in an Arcade & are still alive to tell about it is astronomically low. Changing the name & the sprite to Ms. Pacman really made all the difference. One of the best Arcade games ever made!
That's a pretty crazy story!
Man that's nuts
You forgot to mention the best part about Jr. Pac-Man, it had the best cut scenes of any Pac-Man game. It was basically a retelling of Romeo and Juliet with Jr. Pac-Man and yum-yum having a forbidden relationship and then running away together.
Yeah they cut the tragic ending though
Glad I still have my MAME rom collection which includes this game in all its arcade glory.
Same here! Hopefully this gets released on the MiSTer. Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man are, so I don't see why Jr Pac-Man can't.
@@pojr This is partly why I prefer MAME to MiSTer. Some of the games are more faithful in MAME too. You'd think a paid hardware FPGA would always be better, but often isn't.
As James Bond learned decades ago Never Say Never Again. Namco is in Talks with AtGames which at this moment seems to own Jr Pac. About getting all the non Namco Pac titles.
That makes a lot of sense. If AT Games can't release the ones they own because Namco owns the overall IP then it's in Namco's best interest to sit on them in order to pressure ATG to sell outright rather than pay in perpetuity.
The Atari 2600 port of Jr Pac-man is the best Pac-Man port on that system
The fruits/prizes in Jr. Pac-Man actually do two things: Make dots bigger... and, if allowed to finish their pathing, destroy a power pill. The bigger dots have two features as well: They are slower to eat, yes, but are also worth 50 points each instead of the normal 10. A player with a lot of time on their hands can strategize based on this, to maximize their score in the earlier levels before things get too difficult to bother.
I didn't remember Jr. Pac-Man from the 80's, but when I bought my full sized coin operated Galaga cabinet with the iCade 60-in-1 board, it has Jr Pac-Man. I agree, it's definitely the best of the bunch... and the most challenging.
Ahem. There is a (crappy) DOS remake of Jr. Pacman. It doesn't scroll.
Back in those days, Video Game Copyright Law and Licensing still had lots of legal gray area and that's sad because it's why Jr. Pac-Man exists in limbo forever. These were the early days before many court cases since then gave us some settled law on those issues. It was a new frontier, literally the Wild-Wild West back then until the Sheriff came to town.
Yeah it's too bad one of the best, if not best, versions of Pac-Man will probably never resurface, other than on my Raspberry Pi lo.
@@pojr why don't you play them on actual PC?
Jr. Pac-Man is available for the 7800 from AtariAge. It's a great port. AtariAge has lots of great ports. I picked the cart up at a show in Vegas about ten years ago, and it remains one of my favorite 7800 games. It's the best way to play Jr. Pac-man.
There's also a 5200 port, another homebrew "or possibly un-released but now available" .. but the scrolling doesn't look smooth.
I had it for the 2600.
MsPacMan is still my favorite arcade game. I think it's the perfect balance and fun and simple. I do like Jr. PacMan too...
Also, it's a homebrew, but there is a great version of Jr. PacMan for the Atari 7800 console...
In fact, there are great homebrew versions of pretty much every classic PacMan game on the 7800.
After the success of Ms. Pacman, Midway should have negotiated for a full licensing of future titles with whatever conditions reasonable. It was obvious that Midway had a terrific feel for the brand. Not having to put your own money into R&D, marketing, and supervising production of the hardware in the 1980's would have been quite an opportunity.
Jr. was acknowledged by namco he makes appearances in the Pac-Man world games though.
I really like the Commodore 64 port, which had a copyright date of 1988, and stated that "jr pacman is a trademark of namco". I played the heck out of this as a kid.
Now I'm taking a closer look at the 5200 version. It might be the closest home conversion of the arcade.
I think Namco was foolish not to work closer with Midway.
There is a Jr. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600. But, like the other Pac-Man games on that console, it was completely redesigned to run on that hardware.
I've played it on MAME and agree it's the best PacMan sequal. Thanks for providing these insights.
Well, we probably will continue to see Ms. Pac-Man in Arcade1UP releases.
Agreed. One of my biggest regrets is getting the Pac-Man cabinet and not the Ms Pac-Man one.
IF this is how it went down, then it was DEFINITELY LAME of midway
just bc their games were quote "better" would not be grounds to justify their screwing around namco's back
the base game was what mattered, the sequels essentially were just simply some 'reskinning' with game mechanic tweaks
that punched it up a notch, sure, credit for creativity, but not full blown rights over the sequels. thats a stretch to think thats even fair, no matter HOW long the originator took to release a sequel
b/c in the end, it was never their franchise to begin with. again, definitely LAME
Jr. Pac-Man is one of my favorite games in the entire franchise. Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, and Pac-Mania round out my top 3. Jr. Pac-Man did, by the way, get released on the Atari 2600 in 1986. I have one of the 1988 rereleases.
He showed it in this video you didn't watch
There was also an Atari 400/800 port that was basically finished, but never released. There's a physical prototype out there that you can buy (if you know where to look) that comes in a very authentic-looking Atari 400/800 cart (with a less than stellar label, though), and it plays on real hardware.
I wouldn't recommend this to the average gamer or even the novice collector. Since the ROMs are floating around the internet and not exactly difficult to find, it's very easy for people to make reproduction carts to pass off as legitimate Atari 8-Bit or 5200 cartridges to those with an uneducated eye. (Read as: Most people.)
If you're a serious collector, you can probably find a way to verify authenticity. If you simply want to _play_ it on real hardware, a ROM on a multi-cart with an SD card slot or even a reproduction cart that is acknowledged as a repro is a much cheaper option.
I don't understand why super pac man and pac man plus got rereleased on the namco museum compilations until now.
Jr Pac Man seriously needs a speed up hack
Midway got reeeal ballsy lol.
Also dude I think this is one of your best vids yet 😎 Keep being awesome and thanks for making vids!
And this is the reason why people LOATHE AtGames. They outright STOLE from GCC AND Namco.
I saw Jr Pac Man once at Cedar Point as a kid in like 2000 and was blown away by it. Now I know why I haven't seen it since.
I always wondered that about Jr Pacman. I play on a flash site, but thanks for letting us know. I subbed to you btw.
This one is complicated, hopefully one day jr pac-man gets sorted out.
7:55 - Do NOT use "thankfully" and Jack Trammell in the same sentence unless it's about him LEAVING the company. That man did almost nothin good for any company he owned and sold off. Trammell was a shark and nothing else.
nuff said?
I laughed at this 😂
I was thinking the game might be "Kick". I saw it at the Pac Man tent at the 1982 World's Fair. The game was about keeping Pac Men stacked on a guy's head. There was no maze.
Subscribed, I'm really enjoying your videos, they take me back. In Toronto, it was VERY easy to find a Ms. Pac-Man machine, Pac-Man not so much. However, my favourite was Baby Pac-Man, I loved the pinball/video game combo. Also was a fan of Super Pac Man, probably because both of these went a little easier on your quarter. Pac-Land as well. I rarely got past stage three on Ms Pac Man. I wonder who owned the rights to the Pac-Man cartoon?
There was a pretty good home version for the Atari 2600.
I actually have Pac-Man, Puck Man, Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man in my MAME arcade because they're all included in the vertical classics list of the "All Killer, No Filler" compilations. Ms. Pac-Man is unsurprisingly the most played game of all 4.
Ms.PAC Man exist not PAC Mom in my book!
It’s a shame we won’t get to play Jr.PAC Man on the Switch & I seriously doubt PAC Man Plus!
I was blessed to get my from my Fiancé that I got a Numbskull Ms.PAC Man & now I know why thanks to this fantastic well spoken & well explained young man why the markee doesn’t have the Bally/Namco on it.
Dang I would have been pissed if Midway was doing this to me,who wouldn’t?!
I am so glad I subscribed to this Channel!
I had Jr. PacMan on the 2600. Played HOURS of it when I was a kid in the late 80's and early 90's.
Namco museum 50th anniversary has a locked arcade game that can only be unlocked to get a high score of Mac-Man, or Ms. Pac-Man, I think that hidden arcade is Jr. Pac-Man, I never managed to beat the score to see for myself, but I always thought it was possible, I have a old PC game with Jr Pac-Man included, so I have played it!
Namco did establish a US division, Namco America, Inc., in 1978. They would license their games to Atari and Midway, among other companies.
This is really solid reporting on a topic not many seem to know about...how have I not found this channel yet? Liked + subbed, keep up the great work!
Just picked this 2600 cart (Jr)up at my local retro store for$12!
I would've never known that Jr. Pac-Man even existed if it weren't for a weird 39 in 1 multicade cabinet I saw once. I at first thought it was some kind of bootleg game when I first saw it cycling on attract mode (I had the same thoughts when I saw Donkey Kong 3 on the attract mode) then later did research and found out it was an actual game of sorts... albeit one with an iffy legal history. Jr. Pac is a cool game though, but you're more likely to find Ms. Pac-Man out in the wild than Jr. Pac-Man.
Great video!! Never knew this story! Very interesting overall.
It wasn't cool that Midway pretended Pac Man was theirs, but can't blame them for wanting to do a follow up at the height of Pac mania!👍👍👍
I dont comment often but I always leave a like as soon as the video starts, I love your stuff man!
I really appreciate that, thank you so much!
Namco's and midway's problems started with Midway assuming they had the home rights to Pac-Man because they had the arcade rights Pac-Man. There's a really good Bally Astrocade clone of Pac-Man (now called Muncher) which was the best contemporary home version of Pac-Man there.
That's just as much a part of the Namco/ Midway saga as Pac-Man was.
Also I noticed the historical inaccuracy in Pixels. Namco, Taito and Konami were listed sponsors of the world video game. At the time Midway would have been the distributor of both Namco and Taito games, and Konami was more like a studio not a publisher. Konami released their games through many different American distributors on a title-by-title basis.
The most interesting effect of this fallout between the Japanese and the Americans was what they did with the joystick layout because of these World championships that were fictionalized in Pixels.
Based on my memory most of the games had ambidexterous. It's that the tournaments were played America they use Americans machines, and most of that all the games were won by Americans. And these machines are ambidextrous and the Japanese believed that was cheating.
So between the Namco Midway stuff, about the Astrocade Pac-Man, Ms Pac-Man and Jr Pac Man, a Japanese accusing Americans of cheating by being able to use either hand, that's was the motivation for a revenge plot.
And a lot of this is documented on my website sinistersticks.com , primarily because they're meaner means of revenge was dominating the industry and forever putting the joystick on the left side, explaining why this very day do company made a right-handed stick authorized by Japanese system makers.
And I sure how much this affects Play by taking a bunch of random people and beating a champ at Street Fighter 2. This champ whi used to dominate us locally, literally went from hero to zero when facing a right handed joystick.
Think about it. The facts all make sense
Jr Pacman was also released for the Commodore 64 and MS DOS
Exactly. He didn’t do much deep diving. That’s what is wrong w/ “journalists” these days.
On the C64 version, the screen doesn't scroll
@txtworld It's still Jr Pacman regardless. Plus UT includes the cut scenes.
@@SchardtCinematic Jr. Pacman's defining feature, is its oversized playfield and scrolling screen. Without it, the C64 version doesn't pass muster. You're best to play the excellent Atari 7800 version, the original arcade version (via Mame) ... or the commendable (and official) Atari 2600 port
@txtworld But everything else is there in the game except the scrolling. I don't know why they programmed it that way. But it is still Jr. Pacman to me.
Super PacMan may very well be the best arcade PacMan.
I liked Jr. Pac-Man although the difficulty seems tough. The Atari 2600 version is one of the best games on the Atari 2600. The 2600 version has selectable levels of difficulty.
Absolutely. Jr Pac-Man is one of my favorite 2600 titles in general.
Yes! One of the greatest. I used to put hours in on that game.
I miss "Coming at you with another video"
Jr pac-man has been acknowledged, by having the antagonist: Jr, in pac-man world.
it sounds like you get a roommate, then they start doing your dishes and cooking you food. it's hard to be mad at them, but they definitely overstepped some boundaries. as far as not owning Jr. Pacman - they weren't involved in the first place. it's like the roommate moving out and taking the TV they bought and then later abandoning it on the curb.
I thought it as going to be Pac-Man VR, that game is now rare. Oops.
Who owns the right to Baby Pac-Man the one that was a arcade game and pinball machine combined?
Bally's.
That means, no more ⬆️⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️⬅️, as a cheat code will no longer be needed to play the original Pac-Man in future Namco classics collection cabinets. This is also why the Konami code (⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️) seems to be more popular these days.
I love this channel. I am autistic and your videos just keeps feeding me information about retro games and retro consoles. Keep up the good work.
I say that the rights to both Ms. Pac-Man AND Pac-Man, and the remnants of the properties of Midway, as well as Bandai Namco, need to revert to ME, as all of the arguing parties that dared to take action against myself would find out that it is a bad idea.
Who owns Junior Pac-Man now with enough people and money backing it we can get 1up arcade machine made
In Pac-Man 2 on Sega Genesis if you find all the hidden cartridges in the game you can play a unique version of Pac-Jr. It’s nothing like the arcade version and Is a unique game made by Namco just for the Sega Genesis. The Super Nintendo version just has Ms. Pac-Man instead. It's very weird.
There's also a code you can input to go the game directly.
another reason why there is no jr is because of decency.
in the 80s decency was a big thing and anything with sensitive subject matter including music had to be heavily euphemized and 1 such euphemism in particular was not powerful enough to tame the subject matter that is the number 69 with the song now known as 96 tears.
so having a pacman, ms pacman and then pacman jr suggested that there was sex involved.
and yes even music was attacked for decency that is how the explicit warning label was made.
Usually you hear about US companies being ripped off by foreign companies... not the other way around. (Now I say that sitting here in the Midwest... It might be the same story "over there" just backwards.
FYI - Nintendo is called "Nintendo Company Limited" (or just NCL) in Japan. Great video, though!
Thank you for the support! Didn't realize it was called NCL in Japan.
Was wondering what happint to Jr Pac Man! Thanks for the video
Jr. PAC-Man was also released for the Atari 5200
My Boss had a Jr Pacman Arcade and at a Christmas Party I got the high score and the following year I noticed my score was still there. The next year it was gone :( he sold it
I would be salty if I lost my score. There's a laundromat near my house that had Jr Pac-Man in it.
Jr. PacMan is awesome and really ramps up the difficulty.
That's some great info! I never knew all that legal stuff about those two games. But then again, I get glossy eyed and fall asleep a little when dealing with legal stuff. You made it very interesting though!
The "5200" version was patched to play on Atari 8-bit computers.
I have only to thanks Midway. Ms Pac Man was one of my favorite Atari 2600 games, it was an amazing port, that still is good today.
Ms Pac Man was way more popular than original because it faster and it seemed like the arcade owner could adjust the speed on it, making it crazy fast. I'm not sure about that though. Jr. wasn't around in the arcades long enough for anyone to get hooked on it and I only saw 1 Baby Pac Man game at the grocery store entrence. That one had so much Japanese style screen clutter no one played it. The only console game I played was the first one and it was terrible.
What did you say Pac-Man World was terrible
Did you know that at one point Namco in Japan was called Namcot but for some reason Namcot decided to drop the “t” at the end and became Namco
You do know that the "t" in Namcot stands for Tengen right. They later dropped the "t" cause Tengen was no more. Namcot was shorten for Namco Tengen. Tengen was a development team form from the association with Namco, Atari, Sega, and Midway (known as Bally Midway back then). These same companies also had rights to Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man and several other retro arcade games back then which is why you see similar games from some of them.
@@VOAN isee
First played the 2600 port which is still a very good version. Rock hard too.
I come from an alternate reality where Namco contacted Phillips and said, "Go ahead and make some games with our character." and Nintendo contacted Midway. I tell you what,... you should see these awesome Zelda games!!
10:16 or by going online and searching "Jr. Pac-Man online"
Edit: 12:06 and he mentions that here
You get a great version of Jr. PacMan with MAME
you forgot that the bonus items destroy the energizer dots
I think it was wrong for Midway to go forward with a different game based on the original Pac-man characters. Had they approached Namco, and got their permission, then everyone could be satisfied and profitable. I understand Midway felt they had a prerogative to promote their game due to having regional oversight, but in my opinion it is still profiting off of someone else's idea. If I understand correctly, Namco still were paid royalties, so this is okay I suppose, but I don't blame Namco for canceling their contract with Midway and it makes one wonder what could have been had they worked together in unison.
I swear to god that if theres something i fucking hate,it’s that brutal copycat business,whether it was a common practice or not,it’s just unfair,
HOWEVER if this case i do make a partial exception because eventrough both gcc or midway did made some pacman clones,they did got eventually permission from namco and they recieved royalty’s for that,but once those companies did kept on continuing doing such practics ,it eventually did cut the last straw of namco and so they broked the contract with midway,
Now about all those pacman compelations over those years on all those different systems,whether it’s called namco’s arcade collection,namco’s arcade musuem,namco’s legendary arcade hits,namco’s virtual arcade hits,namco’s 80’s arcade hits,namco’s flashback hits,namco’s super/ultimate/megamix etc,,, arcade hits from the past,
To me it’s nothing more then just a last minute aftertout cash grabbing business,they should stop doing that am mean how long would they keep going doing that? What’s next ultimate namco library hits HD ultronic namco library hits for the ps5,xbox s and ps6 and xbox 5??? Phew🤣
we know we shouldn't say never but it is what it just is and that is the damn point.
VERY questionable to say it is the best PacMan game. The side scrolling doesn't work for a game like PacMan. I just remember dying a lot because I got cornered by an off-screen enemy. Which is bad gameplay. There was no way for me to know that that path would be blocked off once the screen scrolled
Goodafternoon sir. There a code that unlocks Jr Pacman on Pacman 2 for Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. I was super hype to figure that out when I was kid. In the mid 1990's. Sir
Jr Pac-Man is a fun game it’s criminal this game isn’t re released, stinks it never panned out as it really should.
Uncompressed copyright is just another reason why we need ROMs, CHDs, and emulators.
Never say never. You never know what could happen
Maybe they should've married. 😏
They could've made beautiful children (*games) together.
Great story! Your example of a friend making a game behind your back with your character is not completely accurate.
Here is the more accurate version:
> if you had a friend who had helped you make your game a multi million dollar success, then made versions of your game without your knowledge but paid you royalties for those games' sales.
...It sounds like a win for Namco. Namco earned more from their pacman franchise without lifting a finger. They had zero risk, they didn't need to hire a programmer, spend to make a new concept, and didn't even spend for marketing... And yet they earned royalties! It should have been a total win.
That sucks because Jr. Pac-Man is the best version of Pac-Man. It's so challenging
How about PAC-Man and Ms. PAC-Man and Tengen?
Yeah, NAMCO's pac sequel kinda sucked, whereas Midway made some classics with the brand. Midway should've approached them and said 'hey, PM is too big to wait this long, let's both make games" and do a contract for rights for the new games
wow, this was a really greast video - I did not know that this had never been re-released or ported. Fantastic, keep it up!
Baby Pac-Man was created by Atari Age form the 7800.
Just to be annoying pedantic comment guy: Ms PAC Man is not included on the Wii Megamix collection 0:19
Yeah and it’s also not included in Namco Museum DS, Arcade Pac, or Pac-Man Museum Plus. 😂 bro just grabbed random Namco games and called it a day
It's a damn shame that my favorite Pac-Man will never see the light of day again.
Never say never
What about the Homebrew Intellivision version ?
So semi com .... are you ever going to talk about their pac man series for arcades?
That’s ms Pac-Man/ pacmanjr are derived work, yes that’s violation of copyright law. That’s cool, I’m working on a universal engine
imo, pacman was an intellectual property, but if Namco licensed it to midway. midway had rights to that IP. using those rights, Midway basically tried to build a pac-universe and held on to its agreement with namco for the licensing royalties. I think namco was in the wrong. Midway wanted to build on the pac IP and make more pac stuff and keep the pac franchise hot, and isnt that what you want from a partner? The words pac man and the game play of eating dots in a maze of ghosts were namco ideas and Midway paid royalties to use those ideas and built a franchise of pac games based on that, and I think that is completely fair as long as namco got their share for the trademark use.
Was Jr.Pac-Man in the Saturday Morning Cartoon 🤔 ?
Nobody ever mentions professor pacman
Midway shouldn't have been so have been so head strong. Just because... What could we have? V.s. what we could have *(will have) happened? If the great Puck Man was Super-ed and Crazy Otto-ed out, but with a collaboration of the concept. I believe that game could have been awesome.
()been like?
Not sure I understand something...if Jr. Pac-Man is not currently "owned" by any company (i.e. nobody is even acknowledging it's existence) then why can't it be released? It almost sounds like it's now part of public domain.
I don’t think they’re sure who owns it
@@ChicagoMel23 Yep. The rights are likley in a "disputed" state which would require courts to intervene and without a settled matter of ownership, nobody is going to want to risk a lawsuit. Namco already had to deal with that when they forgot to pay the royalties to GCC years ago.
I want ALL THE PACMAN!