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by joezydeco 4748 days ago
Games like Pac-Man expect the joystick to read Up,Down,Left or Right only.

8-Way joysticks either output combinations of the two directions (Left+Up=Northwest), or totally unique outputs that read as nothing to the 4-way game.

In either situation, gameplay gets clumsy or non-operational when the diagonals are hit. And some people like smoothly rotating the stick from Left to Up, let's say. That would look like Left...Idle...Up to Pac-Man. And that means certain doom if a ghost is behind you.