Said to be the CEO of the Nintendo Gaming Corporation, Kristian Wilson is the apocryphal author of the following quote: "If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in a darkened room munching pills and listening to repetitive music."
The CEO of Nintendo from 1950 to today is Hiroshi Yamauchi. Whether or not Kristian Wilson exists remains to be determined, but the authorship of the quote attributed to him or her is clear. It is a joke that was penned by British comedian Marcus Brigstocke, who has said the following about the matter:
Ah! Bloody Pacman....
It is my joke. I wrote it, then I took the rest of the day off as I was so chuffed with it. I am gutted that it has been claimed and passed around by so many people. Intellectual property law will not save me, the false claims will continue until I am man enough to give it all up. All I can say is — it seems that it is very unlikely that it was written by a Nintendo employee in 1989, being as Pac Man was still around and not much of a childhood memory, there were very few claims that gaming influenced children's behaviour, and that the wording of it is identical to how it has been delivered in my stand up routine for 6 years! For those that are interested it has also been atributed to Bill Gates, but then so has Windows! Bitter? Well perhaps just a little. It was sent to me by someone at Channel 4 a few years back after I did it on Channel 4 in a late night stand up show!
Hope that clears everything up.
Last updated: February 04, 2009.
