The Pac-Man Principle: A User's Guide To Capitalism [Paperback]

A blast from the past; direction to the future? Pac-Man is our guide through the maze of contemporary capitalism.In spite of being well into middle-age, Pac-Man's popularity shows no sign of decline and the character has appeared in over sixty games on virtually every games platform ever released. According to the David Brown celebrity index, in 2008, nearly three decades after initial release, 94% of Americans were able to recognise Pac-Man, which gave the character greater brand awareness than Super Mario. Pac-Man, with its avowed commitment to non-violence was a videogame of many firsts, including being designed to appeal to children and females and providing the first narrative interlude in a videogame. Although iconic, Pac-Man has not been subject to sustained critical analysis. This book helps to fill that gap, providing an extensive, sophisticated, but accessible analysis of the influence of Pac-Man on the way that we live in contemporary western societies.Alex Wade is a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Education at Birmingham City University, UK. He has published widely on French social theory, space and time in videogames and the histories of videogames.