Everything You Need To Know About Pizza Hut's New Pac-Man Collab

All you gamer fans out there should take note of this incredible opportunity. For a limited-time, you can enter Pizza Hut's sweepstakes for a custom-made Pac-Man arcade cabinet. According to a press release, this is part of their "Newstalgia" campaign, the concept of which is to redeploy iconic images from the past of the Pizza Hut brand, like arcade games and red cups, but with a contemporary twist. In this case, Pizza Hut has designed special boxes that allow you to play an augmented reality version of the game with your smartphone. 

To play the game, just order a large pizza from Pizza Hut and scan the box's QR code. After playing, the game will offer you a prompt to share your score with the Pizza Hut Twitter account. If you do, you will be entered for the sweepstakes, regardless of how well you actually do in the game. On April 3, the pizza chain will randomly select a winner to take home the coveted prize. 

Yutaka Fuse, head of licensing and branding at BANDAI NAMCO Entertainment Inc., explained in the press release why this was a perfect partnership. "PAC-MAN's design and creation was inspired by the shape of a pizza with a slice taken out of it, making this partnership so appropriate for the PAC-MAN brand," Fuse said. "PAC-MAN games and Pizza Hut pizzas occupy a special place in many people's memories; we're excited to have the opportunity to create fun memories for a new generation of PAC-MAN and Pizza Hut fans through this collaboration."

While this might just seem like a marketing ploy, it's actually true. Pac-Man was indeed inspired by a partially consumed pizza, as Toru Iwatani, the creator of Pac-Man, confirmed to Game Informer. Over 40 years ago, Iwatani was thinking about making a game focused on eating, as he ate a whole pizza. One slice in, however, he noted the interesting shape made by the pie with a piece missing. This shape would later become what Pac-Man looked like when his mouth opened during the game. And the rest, as they say, is history.