The pirates may ship in blank boards and the electronic circuitry separately for assembly in the United States, Plaia fears. Pac-Man, the feminine and supposedly more challenging version, has hit the pinball palaces, Midway is unsure how imposters will strike. Customs officials can now spot the phony game boards, Plaia said.īut now that Ms. ![]() ports, Midway says, but now they ship in the computer game boards to be assembled into cabinetry here. Until a few months ago, the counterfeiters shipped assembled games through U.S. Plaia said imposters openly advertise their phony Pac-Man games in electronic video game magazines and sell them at international trade shows. ![]() The biggest problems appear to be with the Japanese and Taiwanese firms that allegedly are illegally gaining as much as a 30 percent market share for some games in the $1.2 billion electronic arcade game market. Pirating of the cartridge games, such as those made by Atari, doesn't appear to be as widespread as with the arcade games, however, a Wall Street analyst says. Midway, along with Stern Electronics Inc., and Atari, recently won federal appeals court cases upholding their copyrights of their games and were awarded injunctions against the offending firms. Game manufacturers also claim there are domestic pirates. "The problem is there are so many people in Taiwan and Japan who are able to inexpensively bring Pac-Man games into the country," said Paul Plaia, attorney for Midway. Other copies may go by the names "Puckman," "Packman," "Gobbler," "Puc-Man" and "Pac-Pac," Midway says. Some of the copies of its games are so accurate, Midway claims, that they include its trademark insignia, and the company says one of the few ways it can tell who made them is by the quality of the "joy handle" used to manuever Pac-Man. rights to Midway to manufacture arcade games and to Atari Inc. Pac-Man was invented by Namco Ltd., a Japanese company that sold U.S. Customs officials and illegally ship fake games into the United States. of Chicago, says it is involved in a more serious game: Elusive Asian competitors, Midway says, are gobbling its profits and threatening its reputation by importing phony, lesser quality Pac-Man and other coin-operated arcade video games into the country.Īs Midway describes it, in this game of espionage and counterfeiting it is the pursuer, chasing down scores of small Japanese and Taiwanese firms that with cheap labor, expert copying techniques and clever maneuvers circumvent U.S. Now the maker of the arcade-style Pac-Man, Midway Manufacturing Co. ![]() Pac-Man is the phenomenally successful video game of pursuit and capture, with the yellow, pie-faced Pac-Man electronically gobbling monsters or the monsters attacking him. At one point, Pac-Man manages to gobble one of his pursuers, and the hunt goes on. He dodges them, munching a few pink energizer pills along his way, and then resumes the chase. Monsters Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde chase Pac-Man through the neon-blue maze.
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