Copies of the Ideal arcade-based titles are very hard to find today, possibly due to low distribution or due to the fragile nature of the “Flip R’Cade” device built into the game board. Pac-Man is the star of the most exciting maze game around Inky. All of Ideal’s releases used a strange interactive plastic rolling device they titled “Flip R'Cade”. Pac-Man Board Game from 1982 by Milton Bradley Company, COMPLETE and in EXCELLENT condition Ms. Ideal made do with Konami’s Pooyan and Tutankham, and Midway’s Blue Print and Wizard of Wor. Entex had the licenses for the Konami arcade game Turtles, William’s Defender (in North America only, MB would release their own version of Defender for most of the rest of the world) and produced a strange game called Invaders which was obviously inspired by Taito’s Space Invaders. Parker Brothers grabbed up several licenses that MB seemly didn’t want including Namco’s Pole Position, William’s Joust, Popeye (based on the Nintendo arcade game) and Gottlieb’s Q*bert. Manufactures like Parker Brothers, Entex, Ideal, and Pressman also wanted in on the attempt to turn pixel quarter love into cardboard-based fun for the whole family. Milton Bradley was far from the only toy company to get into the odd world of board games based on video game properties. Kids in 1980 wanted Missile Command and Space Invaders, and no longer desired Easy Bake Ovens or Monopoly games leaving toy executives scrambling to wonder what the future of the industry would be like. Silicon Valley upstarts like Atari became the “cool kids” to 80’s kids and quicky ate into the profits from traditional toys. Early video game machines were sold often in traditional toy and department stores who in turn, eventually also sold early home computer systems such as the Atari 800 and Commodore 64. A great item for a collector of vintage board games, a vintage video game enthusiast. Soon after the Pongphenomenon the monumental success of the Atari VCS home system really made toy companies stand up and notice. Pac-Man Milton Bradley Theres not many people around the world. This was driven by early successes of home Pong machines and their many clones. The new industry around video games sent a scare throughout the toy industry. A lot of this might have been based around the concept of FOMO or “fear of missing out”. With the rising tide of popularity from Atari’s Pong, then Taito’s Space Invaders in the 70’s, and after the 1980 Namco cultural bomb Pac-Man, traditional toy companies dived deep into the new waters of electronic playthings and videogame themed toys.
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