On Saturday Pac-Man celebrated 30 years of chomping ghost and pellets, but a recent interview reveals that its creator intended Pac-Man to be a draw for the ladies. As part of Tristan Donovan's upcoming book, Replay - The History of Video Games (on sale later this month), Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani sat down for an interview, revealing some pretty interesting secrets about the original ghost buster.

The decision to use the "kawaii" or cute character style character was based on the idea that a game like Pac-Man could draw women into arcades - a destination that mostly catered to males.

[INDENT]Tristan Donovan: In interviews you said you made Pac-Man to appeal to women. Why did you feel the need to create a game to attract a female audience and what steps did you do to find out what kind of game would appeal to women?

Toru Iwatani: This was before the Famicom [NES] home consoles so the only place to play videogames was at arcades. Most arcade videogames of the time were violent and focused on the male player, so the game-centres became places frequented mainly by men. We decided to change that demographic by designing games that can appeal to women and thus to couples, therefore making game-centres desirable places to go on a date.[/INDENT]Toru Iwatani also revealed that his influences and tastes were more aligned with Disney, Japanese animation and manga - which he grew up watching on TV and at the movie theaters. He also wanted children to play video games, so using violence is an element was not something he wanted to be involved in. Finally, Iwatani explained where the whole concept of the Pac-Man character came from:

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