Pac-Man Wiki
Pac-Man Wiki
Pac-Man Wiki
1,373
pages
in: Games, Pac-Man Games, Web Games,
and 3 more

Pac-Man Google Doodle

Sign in to edit

For the separate 2025 Google Doodle game, see Pac-Man: Halloween 2025 Edition.

The Pac-Man Google Doodle (conjectural name), officially known as 30th Anniversary of Pac-Man, is a playable "Google Doodle" HTML5 game. The game was created internally at Google, with its development led by Marcin Wichary and Ryan Germick, and was published on Google's homepage on May 21st, 2010 in commemoration of Pac-Man's 30th anniversary. The Pac-Man game remained as Google's logo for a 48-hour period; it is still accessible on Google by searching for "Pac-Man" or "pacman 30th anniversary" [sic].

The Pac-Man Google Doodle would be followed in 2025 by Pac-Man: Halloween 2025 Edition, an otherwise-separate Pac-Man game.

Gameplay[]

The Pac-Man Google Doodle is very similar to the original Pac-Man arcade game in gameplay, featuring closely-cloned mechanics (including the Ghosts' A.I.). The main difference is the shape of the maze, which is now shaped around the Google logo. There is also a two-player co-op mode with Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, which can be accessed by clicking "Insert Coin" after the game has already begun; the multiplayer mode was described as "a little easter egg" by developer Marcin Wichary. Pac-Man is controlled by moving the arrow keys, while Ms. Pac-Man's movement is mapped to the WASD keys.

The of the game.

The 256th level of the game.

The infamous 256th level glitch is also recreated in the Google Doodle, appearing after completing 255 preceding levels. Completing it results in a "Game Over" screen.

Impact[]

The Pac-Man Google Doodle was met with widespread acclaim, attracting millions of players. While initially scheduled to go offline after its 48-hour launch period, Google would later make the game permanently accessible online due to its positive reception.[1]

Infamously, a survey-calculated report on the Pac-Man game was released by Tony Wright of the startup company RescueTime. Wright estimated that, if calculating interactivity with the Pac-Man Google Doodle over potential work hours, a total of 4.8 million hours of productivity were lost worldwide by people playing the game.[2] An rebuttal released by Business Insider would dismiss this study, however, claiming that the calculation results were selective in nature.[3] Regardless, the RescueTime article was widely spread to point to the game's popularity and impact.

The Pac-Man Google Doodle has been cited as one of the first HTML5-based video games. The game has been used as an example to highlight HTML5's strengths over Adobe Flash Player, which was still heavily used across the internet at the time; Flash would eventually be deprecated in the later 2010s. The game's reliance on HTML5 came shortly after Steve Jobs encouraged the platform to be utilized over Flash Player; with some interpreting the Pac-Man Doodle as signaling Google agreed with Jobs' sentiment, if not potentially using it as a subtle jab at Apple in the process.[4]

References[]

  1. ↑ "Google posted the home page doodle in celebration of Pac-Man's 30th anniversary, and the game was only supposed to remain available for 48 hours. But enthusiastic user feedback to 'Pac-Google' inspired the search giant to rethink its plans." - "Google gives the gift of Pac-Man forever" (Ian Paul, NBC News)
  2. ↑ "The Tragic Cost of Google Pac-Man – 4.82 million hours" (Tony Wright, RescueTime Blog)
  3. ↑ "No, The Google Pac-Man Doodle Didn't Cost Anyone Anything" (Business Insider)
  4. ↑ "Google’s Pac-Man Works on iPhone, iPad: Subtle Jab at Jobs?" (Jared Newman, PCWorld)

External links[]

Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.