Practicing the game is not pay-to-win, is pay-to-practice. It still requires skill to win.

Getting to the kill screen seems like it should count as a victory. Getting your initials on the top of the high score screen counts too, if perhaps only briefly. The idea that you can't say you've won unless you've played a completely perfect game is a mindset for insane people who will never be happy.

I think GP's point was, if every practice run costs a quarter, there's likely a correlation between wealth/resources and practice/skill.

that's if you're stuck on the idea of beating a game of skill. if you need that idea, then you have to be able to beat pacman, and so you feed quarters to get to the game ending bug. if you dispense with that idea then you play for your best score, and feeding quarters to get to the kill screen becomes a waste of time.