Bandai Namco opens up Pac-Man and other classic arcade IPs to Japanese developers

Pac-Man and pals are now free agents in Japan. Sort of.

Bandai Namco announced its catalog IP open project, which would enable Japanese game makers access to some of the company’s most popular characters and properties, such as Pac-Man, DigDug, Xevious, Mappy, and Wonder Momo. This project begins in April, and it’s only available to Japanese creators, with the games created only coming to Japanese consumers. While it’s already one of the largest game publishers in Japan, this move will allow the company’s properties to show up on more platforms and devices, giving it further reach into the video game software industry, a market that game investment bank Digi-Capital says will reach $100 billion by 2017.