A few days ago, I found a place I could access some Namco-AtGames legal documents that I hadn't been able to see before. Namely, AtGames' files of "photo evidence" of Namco's supposed wrongdoings, which AtGames keeps separate from their main documents for...whatever reason.
As expected, AtGames' files are, for the most part, incredibly stupid and worthless. One of them is literally just screenshots of negative reviews of Pac-Man toys on Amazon. What does that even prove, let alone show? Conveniently, AtGames' products are left out of the document, which all have FAR more negative press. But the more interesting thing here is a document of e-mail exchanges between Bandai Namco and AtGames, detailing the development of the god-awful Bandai Namco Flashback Blast! system.
Specifically, Namco was discussing which games could be licensed for the device. The list was...exactly the same as the 12-in-1 systems that have been on the market for over a decade. Fun. One of the games in that list is Super Pac-Man; but Namco quickly corrected themselves with this strange message:
"Regarding 11 IPs, Super PAC-MAN has to be changed to other IPs. (Since it includes Marvel’s IP) And, we will come back to you with another candidate."
...What.
Firstly, this would mean that every Pac-Man sequel from the 80s - save for Plus, Pal, and Mania - have some sort of bizarre licensing issue. That is insane. Secondly...Marvel? As in the comic book company? What kind of stake would they have in Super Pac-Man!?
Over the past few days, I've been thinking this over - and while it could be some kind of weird misconception, it all adds up. The only recent release of Super Pac-Man has been from Arcade1UP, who also has the Marvel license. And going back to the eighties, Super Pac-Man home console releases in Japan were suspiciously renamed to "Power Pac" and "Mr. Packn"; not to mention the PlayStation and Game Boy Color ports were completely skipped in Japan, only releasing overseas. It very much gives the vibe of "knowing there are legal issues, then completely forgetting they exist", just as happened with Ms. Pac-Man, and Namco were presumably given a warning about it once Disney bought Marvel out.
But why Marvel? This is where things are going to get pretty theory-bound. I really have no answers here, so take all of this with a grain of salt. But my best guess is that Super Pac-Man was intended to be far, far more than it came to be.
Theory area; proceed with caution and salt grains.[]
For those unaware, Bally Midway (Namco's former U.S. distributor) REALLY tried to market Super Pac-Man. He took over the Pac-Man trading cards. He took center stage in season 2 of the Pac-Man cartoon. He took over Pac-Man Cereal, before Ms. Pac-Man even came to it. And the game appeared as the "grand finale" of the D-grade (and that's being generous) 1983 film "Joysticks". This marketing did...basically nothing, as the game never came close to the popularity of the original Pac-Man and the Mrs...
This makes me think that, perhaps, Super Pac-Man was not meant to be just a game. Not just an alter-ego of Pac-Man. And judging by Marvel somehow owning the intellectual property, I would guess that Super Pac-Man was meant to have a comic book series. Hell, it would likely predate the game in concept, as otherwise Namco would still be the proper owner of it. It's a strange concept - and the biggest stretch I've ever written here - but it's all I can come up with.
...Save for one more thing. With nowhere else to turn, I decided to check the U.S. Copyright Office for Super Pac-Man, to see if Marvel had any mention. Both Bally Midway and Namco have separate copyrights registered for the game. Namco's is pretty standard, but Midway's has an extra party stated: "Rohauer, Raymond"...?
No other Pac-Man copyright record has this name listed. In fact, everything credited to Rohauer is some sort of film, play, or written script; no video games in sight. As such, I believe that this Raymond Rohauer is the same as the film distributor, who also acted as a producer on occasion. To further connect this, the producer Raymond Rohauer passed away in 1987. None of the registrations are any later than that; outside of 1991 ones from the "Rohauer Collection Foundation", which is still directly connected to Raymond. (And no, he has absolutely no relation to Marvel. Not even THAT could be consistent.)
What does this mean? Well, it would make me presume that at some point, Super Pac-Man was going to have an entire goddamn movie. It is known that a Pac-Man movie was briefly planned for release in 1984; I own the flyer that mentions it. The title of the film was never specified, so...could it have been Super Pac-Man? It would be an odd detour compared to Rohauer's catalog, but not impossible.
Well, that's the end of my theory, for the time being. Was Super Pac-Man planned to become a comic book and film star? An attempt of turning Pac-Man into something grander, that came to be nothing? Does any of this mean literally anything at all, or am I reading too deep into things I have barely any actual knowledge on? Most likely the latter; but I thought I would share this regardless. We'll see if this theory holds to the test of time; though for now, I have nowhere else to look. Thank you for reading...whatever the hell this was...
UPDATE 5/3/2021: I honestly never thought I'd even be updating this fiasco. I figured this would forever remain shrouded in mystery. But the other day, I rediscovered something potentially relating to this whole ordeal - that I vaguely knew about many years ago, but completely blocked out of my memory.
I was looking through a Summer 1983 issue of NG Magazine, which was recently scanned and uploaded online. On page 12, there's a short overview talking about the late founder of Namco, Masaya Nakamura; and it has an odd picture accompanying it. A photo of Nakamura, with a bunch of the old Namco robots, Pac-Man...and Superman.
This instantly reminded me of some long-forgotten knowledge; in 1981, there were, in fact, confirmed plans for a Pac-Man comic, co-starring Superman. Two roughdraft sheets of it have been found, and are owned by two comic book collectors. The Pac-Man in the NG Magazine picture is the exact same design as that scrapped Superman comic. This basically proves that Pac-Man and Superman wasn't some weird pitch, or a craftsy knockoff; it was intended to be an official Namco product, but never saw the light of day.
In the NG issue, it says that the Nakamura and Superman picture was provided by..."Gerald". No first name, no last name, just...Gerald. After some extensive research (and a little outside help), I concluded that this was referring to Emanuel Gerard (nicknamed Manny Gerard); a high-up figure at Warner Communications, who was the head of Warner's Atari operations. If I had to guess, I would say that Gerard most likely met with Nakamura for Atari-related Pac-Man negotiations, then got the comic book rights in further talks.
...Going back to those AtGames e-mails, however, Namco says the party who owns the Super Pac-Man IP is Marvel; while Superman would go through D.C. Comics. But I'm willing to bet that was just a simple mistake; Marvel and D.C. is a mix-up people make all the time. I am now convinced that this scrapped Superman and Pac-Man comic is what Namco was alluding to "Marvel" owning. It just all adds up. The time slots are all plausible, and the comic's content is a perfect match.
We're getting closer and closer to solving this mystery. The secrets are out there; they're just buried beyond belief. This gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, something related to the Pac-Man movie will be found some day. But as usual with Pac-Man's nonsensical legal catastrophes, we'll just have to wait and see.
Ireallydontcare123456789 (talk) 20:17, 3 May 2021 (UTC)Ireallydontcare123456789