cant they just

buy atgames or smth

@Trusta Mann That won't happen any time soon because AtGames owns Ms. Pac-Man

I'm more of a Namco type of gal when it comes to these two, to be quite honest...

https://pacman.fandom.com/wiki/History_of_Ms._Pac-Man_legal_issues for More Info

They NEED to get rid of Pac-Mom and Pac-Sis. Because THEY suck.
I want Namco to restore their rights to Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Man Jr., and Baby Pac-Man!

Yep

Although I'm not sure how I would alter this sheet to add that info outside of doing something that would heck with the layout of the sheet...

Eh, I'll figure it out

Pac-Man Museum+ also has the Arcade Archives versions of totally not Ms. Pac-Man and totally not Pac-Baby.

@The Nate May we remember that Ms. Pac-Man wasn't originally a Namco game but a Midway/GCC game as Midway had the US rights to Pac-Man before Namco revoked them for milking their IP. Atari/Tengen had the rights for a while publishing their own remake.

Officially the royalties are unknown but you're probably right. Not sure whether Bandai Namco do have full rights as it seems to be hit and miss whether Ms. Pac-Man ends up on these Namco collections even before the AtGames mess.

Then again Bandai Namco aren't too fond on the unofficial Pac-Man spinoffs, rather focusing on ones that they made (Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Pac-Land and Pac-Mania). They only really re-released Ms. Pac-Man due to its US popularity while leaving the likes of Pac-Man Plus and Professor Pac-Man to rot. Well not exactly for Pac-Man Plus but only US companies re-released that for arcades.

@MollyChan Not exactly the rights, more like the royalties, as in who gets the money

I think Namco legally still can use Ms. Pac-Man in games, they just have to pay AtGames every time they do so and obviously they don't want to do that so they just work around it

@Dr. NES: The first change (World) was made to make her look like her design from the Hanna-Barbera Pac-Man cartoon, which was what the game was based on. The second change (Arcade Archives) was made because of the copyright issues that MollyChan mentioned below.

Why Did They Change Ms. Pac-Mans Look Over And Over Since The Release Of Pac-Land(JPN Release)?

@RaymanFan1995 True, but the fairy is the replacement sprite for Chomp-Chomp in the Japanese version.

@StarmanElite: I don't think the fairy is part of the family...

As much as I don't mind PAC-MOM, it's absolutely stupid. Now all we can do is hope AtGames goes under.
Also the Fairy is missing from this sheet

Honestly now the copyright issues are ridiculous at this point.

@MollyChan sounds like the situation with Oswald the Lucky Rabbit where he was outright stolen from Disney during his time at Universal Studios before going independent. Despite getting the rights back, he's been used very little outside of Epic Mickey.
Which sounds disrespectful to Uncle Walt and his pre-Mickey Mouse legacy

@Sonicfan32 from what I've heard, AtGames bought the rights for Ms. Pac-Man and her original game right around the same time Namco was actually going through the talks of getting it themselves in late 2020. AtGames have since been holding on to the rights, which apparently means that Namco has to start editing Ms. Pac-Man (and also Baby-Pac???) out of re-releases. And since Ms. Pac-Man is still a part of the Pac-Man franchise which Namco owns, its not like AtGames can do anything with those rights they've got without getting Namco's approval, so they are kind of just holding the game and character hostage, so-to-speak. Get ready for Pac-Man Museum+ to have the same edits on Pac-Land, and similar ones in Pac-In-Time. Unless Namco and AtGames can come to an agreement in... 1 month.

Almost thought the Arcade Archives one was a fan edit (or from a really obscure port I've never heard of) until I saw an official screenshot. Who even owns Ms. Pac-Man anymore?