Searches stopped Pac-Man commenced

Hazel Rycroft

GOOGLE’s Pac-Man logo cost society $120,483,800 in productivity. The interactive Pac-Man logo was commissioned to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Pac-Man’s release, web users had 48 hours to "re-live the nostalgia" of the 1980s by playing the game on the Google site.

The usual Google logo was replaced by a playable version of the popular game, in which small yellow Pac-Men must travel around a maze, gobbling up dots while trying to avoid the ghosts. When I was told to write this story I had no idea that Google Pac-Man had taken the world in its grasp.

I was asked by my editor to check it out; lets just say I haven’t done a lot this morning! I can see why so many people spent hours playing this game. I wasn’t alive when Pac-Man was first released and I have never really come into contact with it before.

I am now obsessed. I have set it as my home page, facebook’ed, Twitter’ed and emailed everyone, just to let everyone know how cool it is! Some of the responses I received confirm the opening statement; I sent it to a friend who works as a PA in Brussels, he replied immediately “Noooooo – don’t show me this – it’s a disaster! I can’t work and play!” RescueTime who put the cash value to the time spent on the Google Pac-Man page calculated that Pac-Man consumed 4,819,352 hours of time, or $120,483,800 in productivity. Who’s surprised? If you want to have a go it’s still available at, http://bit.ly/Mrpacman

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