Self-answer, persistence and experimentation pays off! Since the PacMan could not find the net.java.games.input, but I saw it there, I decided to just replace the gamepadlib folder with the one from the GamePadTester which did work. This solved the recognition problem. Then there were two methods in PacMan that were improperly overriding the move method by narrowing the access from public to private, so I changed them to public. Then, it worked! So, copy the gamepadlib folder from GamePadTester on top of the PacManGamePad folder. And, don't forget to rename the jinput-dx8_64 to jinput-dx8-64 in the main folder (when it says it can't find it, you'll see). I will try to document this with more clarity.