Google Pac-Man Gobbles Up 5 Million Work Hours

[John Funk]

Google Pac-Man Gobbles Up 5 Million Work Hours

The playable version of Pac-Man that Google inserted into its logo last week could have consumed a combined 5 million work hours worldwide.

I'm going to just quote myself regarding Google's Pac-Man logo celebrating the lovable yellow puck's 30th anniversary [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100825-Google-Celebrates-Pac-Mans-30th-With-Playable-Logo]: "Guys, this thing is too awesome for words. Just be careful, or else you might spend all afternoon playing this damn thing."

As it turns out, my statement was prophetic. According to the Beeb [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10153286.stm], data gathered by software firm Rescue Time suggests that Google's Pac-Man doodle might have had unintended consequences. Rescue Time's data tracks what workers do on the internet, and it says on average, people use Google approximately 22 times on a typical day, with each search lasting about 11 seconds.

Based on statistics gathered from 11,000 Rescue Time users, the presence of Pac-Man on the Google homepage added 36 seconds to this average. This is actually lower than it might have been otherwise, because many people didn't realize that the doodle was playable - to play, they had to click on the "Insert Coin" button.

Even so, a seemingly minor increase of 36 seconds adds up when multiplied by the 504 million unique users who use Google every day. Factoring this massive userbase into the picture, Rescue Time extrapolates that Google's Pac-Man devoured 4.8 million work hours - a combined 549 years' worth of productivity. Assuming that workers are on average paid $25 (£17.50) an hour, the firm estimated that the little flash game cost the equivalent of $120m in lost productivity.

That's as much money as it would take to hire every last employee at Google and put them to work for six weeks, says Rescue Time.

I warned you. I warned you all! By the way, have I mentioned that it's now permanent [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/pac-man-rules.html]?

(Thanks for the tip, leeloodallasmultipass!)

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[Flying Dagger]

Not surprised.

However, that 36 seconds may not have been all people who work - I know someone who had a day off and spent all day long playing it, and a lot of those 504 million unique hits will come from children, who would not be classed as working, and from people accessing it in their own time.

So the figures are a little exaggerated, but still quite interesting.

I use iGoogle homepage, so I wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been mentioned here.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Im... SO... Happy.

 

[VincentX3]

Even I was about 30mins into it..........

LIES!!! ITS ALL LIESSS!!!!! D:

 

[Punisher A.J.]

I'm so Epic..... I played it ONCE!!!......after that I googled tetris.

 

[Deofuta]

The truly awesome part about it was the fact that it was Multiplayer Not going to lie, me and my friend spent a good twenty minutes crowding over his Mac playing it. Good times

 

[Optimus Hagrid]

By the way, have I mentioned that it's now permanent [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/pac-man-rules.html]?

Yay! This is exactly what I was hoping for.

Also, it should be a requirement of humanity to listen to this:

 

[Soxafloppin]

Il be honest, i did not realise it was playable.

I feel like a bit of a tool now.

 

[carpenter20m]

I get so angry when I read something like "the little flash game cost the equivalent of $120m in lost productivity". It's not your fault, John Funk. It's just that these statisticians think that people are machines and that for 8 hours they are working without pause, stopping abruptly when that time ends.

Well, it doesn't work that way. If one spent 5 minutes on this game, it means that he had 5 minutes to spare; or that he did it during coffee break; or that he stayed 5 minutes later (if his workload was so huge); or that he did it during the procrastination time. In any case, the only money that was lost was probably only what went to the added electricity bill for making the cpu idle less.

Sorry, if this is off topic, but it always makes me mad to read such statements. Don't worry, multinationals, nobody spent your precious money.

 

[_Cake_]

I played it for about a min.

 

[crazyjay321]

I wonder how many of them have been kid's in school just messing around in I.C.T

 

[Danpascooch]

Awesome, I knew it would garner a crapload of hours.

 

[ultimateownage]

I'm more interested about how many people realised that it was two player, click the insert coin button twice and a second player can play the game has ms pacman, using the WASD keys.

 

[Jared]

Hehe, Read that and was so happy! Goes to prove Pac-man can still be epic after all these years! Ill admit, I contributed my share to those hours

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Damn I missed this. I have google.ca as the main page so I guess it didn't have it...

Oh well, thanks for the link! Playing it now!

 

[Flamezdudes]

...it was playable? GOD DAMNIT i could of played it whilst i was bored in ICT class... or at home.

 

[Gate708]

The whole Pacman thing was a conspiracy to lower productivity of business competitors Looks it worked.

 

[Dexiro]

This reminds me of schools, when they whinge at your for being 1 minute late every day and give the excuse that over the year it totals up to missing 99999 hours of work time.

I know for a fact that no productivity is missed from that 1 minute though.

 

[Anticitizen_Two]

By the way, have I mentioned that it's now permanent [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/pac-man-rules.html]?

I was hoping this would happen! It was too awesome to only have up one day.

Anyone else excited for Mario's 30th next year?