Tōru Iwatani
| Toru Iwatani | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 岩谷徹 |
| Born |
Toru Iwatani January 25, 1955 Meguro, Tokyo, Japan |
| Nationality | Japanese |
| Occupation | Video game designer |
| Known for | Pac-Man |
Toru Iwatani (岩谷 徹 Iwatani Tōru?) (born January 25, 1955) is a Japanese video game designer. He is best known as the creator of the arcade games Pac-Man (1980) and Pole Position (1982).
Iwatani was born in the Meguro ward of Tokyo, Japan. He was self-taught, without any formal training in computers, visual arts, or graphic design. For example, he filled his school textbooks with scattered manga, which went on to influence the character designs in his video games.
He joined the computer software company Namco in 1977. This was where he started his career in the video game business. There, he came up with the idea for a game called "Pakku-Man" and in 1980, he, along with programmer Shigeo Funaki (舟木 茂雄), a hardware engineer, a cabinet designer and Toshio Kai (甲斐 敏夫) for sound and music, finished the game. It was released to the Japanese public on May 22 of that year, where it became a huge success. It caught the attention of arcade-game manufacturer Midway, who bought the United States rights for the game and released the game in the U.S. as Pac-Man. Due to its innovative concept and continuing international popularity, it is regarded as one of the all-time classic video games. Iwatani returned to his Pac-Man roots in 2007 when he developed Pac-Man Championship Edition for the Xbox 360, which he states is the final game he will develop.
Iwatani went on to create a few other video games, including Libble Rabble, but none of them reached the amount of success that Pac-Man did. He was promoted within the ranks of Namco, eventually being responsible for overseeing the administration of the company. In a VH-1 Game Break interview, Iwatani said he did not personally profit from the creation of Pac-Man, saying, "The truth of the matter is, there were no rewards per se for the success of Pac-Man. I was just an employee. There was no change in my salary, no bonus, no official citation of any kind."
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