Pac-Man

In the production of Pac-Man, Atari is under the pressure to implement the most successful arcade game to date, an undertaking in which analysts predict a win of $200 to $500 million. In order to be able to swim along the wave of enthusiasm for the arcade version, Atari Programmer Tod Frye provides a window of time of only four months, and the technical requirements of the graphically unspectacular template are underestimated. Frye uses all conceivable programming tricks, but the result disappoints the expectations of the players. Flickering ghosts and a simplified labyrinth compared to the original soon break the sales after a strong start. Pac-Man will still be the most successful game for the Atari 2600 with 7 million copies sold, compared to expectations, but it is a flop: Atari has produced about 12 million copies, at a time when only about 10 million consoles are sold.