Pac-Man[a] is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. The original Japanese title of Puck Man was changed to Pac-Man for international releases as a preventative measure against defacement of the arcade machines by changing the P to an F. Game development began in early 1979, directed by Toru Iwatani with a nine-man team. Iwatani wanted to create a game that could appeal to women as well as men, because most video games of the time had themes of war or sports.[6][citation needed] Although the inspiration for the Pac-Man character was the image of a pizza with a slice removed, Iwatani has said he also rounded out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi (Japanese: 口). Pac-Man is considered by many to be one of the most influential video games of all time; The game established the maze chase game genre, the first video game with power-ups, and the individual ghosts have deterministic artificial intelligence (AI) that reacts to player actions.[127] Pac-Man is considered one of the first video games to have demonstrated the potential of characters in the medium; its title character was the first original gaming mascot, it increased the appeal of video games with female audiences, and it was gaming's first broad licensing success.[123] It is often cited as the first game with cutscenes (in the form of brief comical interludes about Pac-Man and Blinky chasing each other), 2  though actually Space Invaders Part II employed a similar style of between-level intermissions in 1979.[130]