Who would have thought a simple little arcade game would still have any relevance today? But for most grown-ups, it absolutely does. In 1980, the only place you could play Pac-Man was in an arcade, inserting quarters as you went. It wasn’t until 1981 that it was available for the Atari game system, but it sold 7 million cartridges.
In celebration of Pac-Man turning 30, Google created their first-ever playable Google doodle. It was only available for 48 hours (because it was too cool to keep for just one day) and you could either press the “Insert Coin” button to hear the original opening music, or just wait for a few seconds to start, navigating your little munching yellow circle around the Google logo. They worked hard to make it authentic. In the Google blog they said “PAC-MAN seems like a natural fit for the Google homepage. They’re both deceptively straightforward, carefully hiding their complexity under the hood. There’s a light-hearted, human touch to both of them. And we can only hope you find using Google at least a quarter as enjoyable as eating dots and chasing ghosts. You know, without actually needing any quarters.”
Now that the Google doodle celebration is over, you can go to WebPacMan.com to play online for free, and see if internet speed helps Pac-Man run any faster from the ghosts.
According to the Washington Post, the game was originally called Puckman. The name was changed to Pac-Man when marketers realized that American teens would probably replace the P in Puckman with an F.
And Pac-Man has a future too. There are even movie deals, like an Adam Sandler-produced feature length version of “Pixels“, the brilliant French short that features Pac-Man chomping through the New York City subway system.
Tags: Google, Internet Speed
pac man is fucking amazing