Oh Pac-Betty, Ban-Dai-Nam

In 1980, Namco released Pac-Man, and licensed the game to Bally-Midway for distribution in North America. When the game became a hit, Midway did all it could to capitalize on its success while sweeping its creators under the rug. Sequels and spin-offs were released, and Pac-Man was given a large extended family, all without Namco's consent. After one too many unauthorized Pac-Man titles, Namco ripped up its licensing agreement with Midway and partnered with Atari Games for the rest of the 1980s.

Alas, that is not the end of this story. One of these knock-offs, Ms. Pac-Man, was an even bigger success than the original, thanks to more varied gameplay and a welcome injection of personality. Unfortunately, since Namco didn't make the game, they had to share the rights with General Computer Corporation, the team of hackers who did. GenCom has since left the video game industry, and because a printer manufacturer has no need for the Ms. Pac-Man IP, it's decided to sell those rights to someone still in the business.

No, not Namco. Actually, AtGames bought the rights. Yes, that AtGames. Cue drama.

The AtGames Blast, referred to by Mad Little Pixel
as the "Assblaster." Look, I know it's not mature,
but it made me shoot cola out of my nose when
I heard it, so it's gotta be at least a little funny.
(image from Retro Magazine)

Namco is suing AtGames for the rights to Ms. Pac-Man, making this the geekiest custody battle since Bart Simpson fought with his friends over an issue of Radioactive Man. However, it goes a little deeper than that. Namco is also suing AtGames for that Blast plug and play debacle from earlier in the year, when the company promised a device that could play eight arcade-quality Namco games, but actually delivered a candy bar sized console that could barely run their NES counterparts. And the litigation doesn't stop there! Namco is suing AtGames for a Ms. Pac-Man arcade cabinet which they were never given permission to make. Here's the offending item, shown next to a full-sized arcade cab for scale.

image from Polygon

It looks okay I guess, aside from the puzzling size and a bezel that threatens to swallow the tiny screen whole and an overabundance of buttons. It's not likely to see a full-scale release thanks to this lawsuit, but considering the quality of AtGames products we probably won't be missing much.

One more thing I should probably add before I go... AtGames is currently embroiled in another lawsuit with Walgreens, because the pharmacy can't sell its products and AtGames won't take them back. Now there's a custody battle nobody wants to win.