Pac-Man's creator has left the Namco building to go teach future game developers. The self-taught Toru Iwatani worked at Namco for almost thirty years, but had been more on the administration end of late and less on the creative side.

Recently, he lectured on game planning at Tokyo Polytechnic University and taught at the University of Arts in Osaka as a visiting professor. Iwatani recalls that he experienced youngster's passion for gaming and took Tokyo Polytechnic's offer to become a full-time lecturer. He explains his M.O.:

It will become very hard to train staff in-house, as was done in the past. As a result, the educational institutions must follow through. However, Japan is far behind in the field of game education compared with the US, Europe, Korea, and China.

Aren't you all warm and fuzzy, right now? Mr. Pac-Man is ditching his high paying front office job to teach pimply-faced otaku. And he isn't just doing it for the youth, but for Japan. How sweet. Brian Ashcraft

More Here [GameSpot]

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