4 ms·

Toru Iwatani made make pac-man. Masaya Nakamura is the founder of namco. Why am I seeing a blatant wrong headline all over the news?

by nodja 10y ago

tinus_hn 10y ago
If they used the correct headline, normal people wouldn't click. Normal people don't know what Namco is.
- louhike 10y ago
  If they do not know what Namco is, I'm not sure they would be interested in him. Now everybody in the comments is talking about PacMan. Namco made/makes a lot of other great games worth talking about.
  - sbuttgereit 10y ago
    Absolutely. Particularly the early 80s. Many of those games filled too many childhood hours to count. Ironically, I didn't like Pac Man so much (back then or today), though I recognize it as being a great game and understand why it would appeal to many.
- ghurtado 10y ago
  I don't know exactly who you mean by "normal people", but I can tell you I most definitely don't come here looking for "normal news".
- Pulce 10y ago
  Or Crash is... https://r.mprd.se/MAME/snap/crash.png https://r.mprd.se/MAME/snap/crash.png
emodendroket 10y ago
Steve Jobs did not personally design or engineer the iPhone either.
- DonHopkins 10y ago
  Masaya Nakamura didn't have a reality distortion field.
  - emodendroket 10y ago
    So?
    - DonHopkins 10y ago
      It's amazing how strong it's still working years after his death.
- vlunkr 10y ago
  But IIRC, Pac-Man was made basically single-handedly by one person, so calling anyone else the "Father of Pac-man" isn't very accurate. Whereas Jobs was overseeing entire teams.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  Because games are more like art than products, so we give credit in a similar fashion to books, movies, tv, etc. The same way we don't say Penguin Books created Moby Dick. Or Valve created Braid. Even then it would be a poor journalist that wrote "Steve jobs creator of the iPhone." Jobs should be credited as the CEO of Apple. I won't even go into the larger issue of how keeping credit away from engineers was probably part of Job's anti-worker philosophies, some of which were made famous during the release of the "poaching" emails. Jobs probably didn't want to create more celebrity engineers and product managers like Andy Hertzfeld or Steve Wozniak who could challenge him and became thorns in his side. >Toru Iwatani As a side note, Toru really seemed to relish his new found celebrity in the 80s and seems overall like a fun goofball. If bored, you can do a lot worse than reading stories about him or doing a google image search for all the cheesy promotional photos he took in the 80s. Interestingly enough, he was looking to create a casual game, especially one aimed at women: INTERVIEWER: What was the thinking behind the design of Pac Man? IWATANI: First of all, the kanji word “taberu,” to eat, came to mind. Game design, you see, often begins with words. I started playing with the word, making sketches in my notebook. All the computer games available at the time were of the violent type–war games and space invader types. There were no games that everyone could enjoy, and especially none for women. I wanted to come up with a “comical” game women could enjoy. The story I like to tell about the origin of Pac Man is that one lunch time I was quite hungry and I ordered a whole pizza. I helped myself to a wedge and what was left was the idea for the Pac Man shape. https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/toru-iwatani-1986-pacman-designer/ https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/toru-iwatani-1986-pa...
hetfeld 10y ago
Actually you are only partially right. Shigeo Funaki was the creator, Toru just made the graphics.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
gowld 10y ago
Can you think of a more accurate headline that's as easy to express? Maybe "Godfather of Pac-Man" ?
- saganus 10y ago
  Maybe "Founder of Namco, the creators of Pac-Man" ?
facepalm 10y ago
fake news epidemic... Nobody cares anymore. Just write shit and hit publish!

Toru Iwatani made make pac-man. Masaya Nakamura is the founder of namco. Why am I seeing a blatant wrong headline all over the news?

by nodja 10y ago

Toru Iwatani made make pac-man. Masaya Nakamura is the founder of namco. Why am I seeing a blatant wrong headline all over the news?

tinus_hn 10y ago

If they used the correct headline, normal people wouldn't click. Normal people don't know what Namco is.

louhike 10y ago
If they do not know what Namco is, I'm not sure they would be interested in him. Now everybody in the comments is talking about PacMan. Namco made/makes a lot of other great games worth talking about.
- sbuttgereit 10y ago
  Absolutely. Particularly the early 80s. Many of those games filled too many childhood hours to count. Ironically, I didn't like Pac Man so much (back then or today), though I recognize it as being a great game and understand why it would appeal to many.
ghurtado 10y ago
I don't know exactly who you mean by "normal people", but I can tell you I most definitely don't come here looking for "normal news".
Pulce 10y ago
Or Crash is... https://r.mprd.se/MAME/snap/crash.png https://r.mprd.se/MAME/snap/crash.png

emodendroket 10y ago

Steve Jobs did not personally design or engineer the iPhone either.

DonHopkins 10y ago
Masaya Nakamura didn't have a reality distortion field.
- emodendroket 10y ago
  So?
  - DonHopkins 10y ago
    It's amazing how strong it's still working years after his death.
vlunkr 10y ago
But IIRC, Pac-Man was made basically single-handedly by one person, so calling anyone else the "Father of Pac-man" isn't very accurate. Whereas Jobs was overseeing entire teams.
drzaiusapelord 10y ago
Because games are more like art than products, so we give credit in a similar fashion to books, movies, tv, etc. The same way we don't say Penguin Books created Moby Dick. Or Valve created Braid. Even then it would be a poor journalist that wrote "Steve jobs creator of the iPhone." Jobs should be credited as the CEO of Apple. I won't even go into the larger issue of how keeping credit away from engineers was probably part of Job's anti-worker philosophies, some of which were made famous during the release of the "poaching" emails. Jobs probably didn't want to create more celebrity engineers and product managers like Andy Hertzfeld or Steve Wozniak who could challenge him and became thorns in his side. >Toru Iwatani As a side note, Toru really seemed to relish his new found celebrity in the 80s and seems overall like a fun goofball. If bored, you can do a lot worse than reading stories about him or doing a google image search for all the cheesy promotional photos he took in the 80s. Interestingly enough, he was looking to create a casual game, especially one aimed at women: INTERVIEWER: What was the thinking behind the design of Pac Man? IWATANI: First of all, the kanji word “taberu,” to eat, came to mind. Game design, you see, often begins with words. I started playing with the word, making sketches in my notebook. All the computer games available at the time were of the violent type–war games and space invader types. There were no games that everyone could enjoy, and especially none for women. I wanted to come up with a “comical” game women could enjoy. The story I like to tell about the origin of Pac Man is that one lunch time I was quite hungry and I ordered a whole pizza. I helped myself to a wedge and what was left was the idea for the Pac Man shape. https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/toru-iwatani-1986-pacman-designer/ https://programmersatwork.wordpress.com/toru-iwatani-1986-pa...

hetfeld 10y ago

Actually you are only partially right. Shigeo Funaki was the creator, Toru just made the graphics.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

gowld 10y ago

Can you think of a more accurate headline that's as easy to express? Maybe "Godfather of Pac-Man" ?

saganus 10y ago
Maybe "Founder of Namco, the creators of Pac-Man" ?

facepalm 10y ago

fake news epidemic... Nobody cares anymore. Just write shit and hit publish!