More often than not, video games provide criticism and satire of the real world. Some of them are so great they’re basically works of art in their own right. They’re often viewed through a critical lens that interprets them as more than just an entertainment medium.
An obvious example is the untold story of Aveline de Grandpre in Assassin’s Creed, which is one of the more crucial chapters in the narrative of video games as a form of cultural and artistic expression. Another example is 1985’s Super Mario Bros., which is widely studied at design schools for its intuitive level design that teaches players the game’s mechanics without offering explicit text instructions.
However, if we dig a little deeper, we arrive at Pac-Man. He’s probably the most iconic video game character of all time (he is better known than Mario) and is often interpreted as a metaphor for Western capitalism. But is there any truth to that? Is Pac-Man the world’s biggest capitalist?
There have been but a few video game characters that have captured the collective imagination quite like Pac-Man. More than 94% of Americans were able to recognize the character in 2008, giving him greater brand awareness than Super Mario. By removing a pizza slice from one of the simplest geometric forms, Namco’s game designer, Toru Iwatani, gave life to the said form, turning the missing segment into a snapping, lovable, and always hungry mouth. Â
Since its debut in 1980, this hungry yellow circle has been tirelessly navigating mazes, gobbling up 240 dots and four Power Pill pellets that are strategically scattered around each level while dodging the game’s colorful ghosts. He does get to eat them for a limited time once he consumes the aforementioned Power Pill. In fact, Pac-Man’s core gameplay revolves around the endless consumption of those dots. Each dot adds to Pac-Man score, with the ultimate goal of clearing the maze of all the dots before moving on to the next level.
This gameplay mechanic is truly a digital representation of capitalist consumption. Though Namco maintains that the idea of Pac-Man being a metaphor for Western capitalism isn’t the official stance of the company nor Pac-Man’s creators, it’s still an interesting interpretation worthy of discussion. Pac-Man’s endless consumption can be seen as a symbol of consumerism; the constant pursuit of points reflects the capitalist drive for more wealth, and the aforementioned ghosts — Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde — are often seen as competitive forces or economic pressure.
The game’s basic progression mechanic and overall design are based on consumption, as the only way to progress is to consume, keep moving, and consume some more. Sustenance is the basic need of all living things, so Pac-Man’s gameplay mechanics actually appeal to broad audiences, regardless of their age, gender, and race, on a biological level. It’s a perfect business plan: by making the game appealing to broad audiences through a gameplay mechanic we’re hard-wired not to ignore (humans biologically can’t ignore food), Namco made massive profits. It’s Capitalism 101.
Furthermore, Pac-Man’s constant consumption and threat from the aforementioned ghosts drive players to pursue Power Pellets, which are power-ups that allow Pac-Man to consume ghosts that he’s supposed to run away from. This concept perfectly mirrors the capitalist pursuit of competitive advantage, in which corporations invest their resources in innovation and market control with the end goal of consuming smaller competitors and consolidating their power and market influence.
Even the in-between level animation, in which Blinky chases Pac-Man off-screen and then runs away from him once the former becomes a giant, perfectly reflects corporate behavior in capitalistic systems. If we take this analysis one step further, we can deduce that the in-game maze actually represents the market. The level design never changes throughout the game, but the strategic approach to each level does; it has to since Pac-Man’s movement are also influenced by the ghosts chasing the ever-hungry mouth.
The strategic approach to each might be different, but the end goal remains the same. In other words, the point of the whole game is finding the most efficient path to consume all the dots while dodging ghosts. This is akin to real-world businesses strategizing ways to maximize profits and their market share while mitigating risks and using those same profits to drive further growth and the consolidation of power and influence.
Thus, in his endless consumption and competition, Pac-Man’s gameplay mirrors the capitalist ethos of accumulation, always seeking more, avoiding being “eaten” by the competition, and getting rid of the same competition given the opportunity. Not only that, but the game also reflects the notion of the individual action and interest versus that of the collective. Pac-Man’s success, though facilitated by the player, is purely individualistic and measured by the game’s score rather than the result of collective achievement. If it was the other way around, we’d call him Comrade Pac-Man.