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Grand Theft Auto and the biggest moments in video game history

Grand Theft Auto 5 (GTA V) made headlines as the biggest video game release of all time, selling more than $1 billion worth of copies in three days. But GTA V didn't get to this landmark moment by itself. Find out more moments that changed the course of video game history in this list, from most recent to the beginning of (video game) time.

10. Pac-Man brings mass appeal

Before Pac-Man, video games were pretty much only marketed to men, kids, and computer science aficionados. But a video game designer from Japan created a universally iconic game that still exists today: Pac Man.

Toru Iwatani originally invented the game for Japanese video game manufacturer Namco in 1979. His goal was to create a gender-neutral game to reach out to untapped video game markets. Though Pac-Man failed to catch on in Japan, when the game was introduced to North America in 1980 it demolished the formerly most-popular game Asteroid, grossing $1 billion in quarters in its first 15 months.

Mr. Iwatani’s invention not only spawned a massively popular video game but a cultural icon that extended across time and interest. A mid-'80s cartoon was created after the character and even a 1981 single called “Pac-Man Fever” by Buckner & Garcia made it to the top 10 on the Billboard charts. The Pac-Man video game can also be found in the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Not a bad deal for a little yellow dot.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

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The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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