Non Existing Video Games You Would Love To Have

[Vipershark]

it's the same reason why nobody gives a shit about pacman
boring characters

the only difference being that with pacman, there's less material to work with.

the original arcade donkey kong had mario (jumpman) rescuing peach (pauline) from donkey kong
there was platforming involved
smb added onto the formula, making the game a platformer but still holding on to the basic theme which was mario rescuing the princess from a large animal enemy
while it was a simple concept, there was a lot of room to work with what they were doing with nwer games since mario had a clear and definite goal: to rescue the princess.

pacman, on the other hand, is about a yellow circle in a maze eating dots and running from ghosts
there is no goal to the game aside from "eat dots" and "don't die"
there is no end goal you're working toward; it's strictly about achieving high scores

while the same could be technically argued of the original donkey kong as far as achieving high scores, the two really can't be compared
donkey kong has an actual story to it (mario has to rescue the princess from donkey kong who continues to ascend higher and higher up a building)
but as i said before, pacman is simply "eat dots and don't die"
there is no actual story content to the game.

which is why i highly doubt that pacman will ever become a mainstream platformer character.
there's just not enough material to work with outside of arcade releases.