In the late ‘70s, Namco video game designer Toru Iwatani began development on an arcade game that appealed to women. At the time, arcades were seen as seedy environments and Iwatani felt that a cheerful non-violent game would make arcades appear to be more family-friendly. Iwatani decided to center the game around eating, basing this on women liking to eat desserts and other sweets. That idea led to Pac-Man—one of the highest-grossing video games of all time. Pac-Man has the highest brand awareness of any video game character and is part of the collection at the Smithsonian.