Google Pacman cost the economy $120 million

gjinc

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REALLY????
http://devilsworkshop.org/google-pacman-cost-the-economy-120-million/

We saw how Google Pacman took the world by storm a few days ago. I think everyone reading this post probably spent some time playing Pacman on Google's Pacman Doodle which probably has not gone down to become legendary. Even I spent a bit of time and it quite refreshingly brought back nostalgia of 386 Processor computers with their limited storage and processing ability. :-D

But what did this unexpected time off with Pacman cost the economy?

pacmanmultiplayer Google Pacman cost the economy $120 million

Here are some mind boggling numbers of the cost that economies endured because of a simple Doodle from Google.

* Over all Google had 504,703,000 unique visitors when the Pacman Doodle went up.
* This over all amounted to 4.8 million work hours being lost to Google as people ended up on an average spending 36 seconds instead of the usual 4 seconds on Google search.
* So the total cost to our economies is about $120 Million and with that money we could have hired the entire Google workforce of 19,835 for about six weeks.

The response to Google's Pacman has been so phenomenal that they have decided to create a page where it is available at any time. So now you can play Pacman at Google.com/pacman

So tell us what you think about Google Pacman's effect? Was it really a waste of money or was it actually a great way to unwind and put up a smile on your face before your day began? Do let me know through your comments.
 
* Over all Google had 504,703,000 unique visitors when the Pacman Doodle went up.
* This over all amounted to 4.8 million work hours being lost to Google as people ended up on an average spending 36 seconds instead of the usual 4 seconds on Google search.
* So the total cost to our economies is about $120 Million and with that money we could have hired the entire Google workforce of 19,835 for about six weeks.

That assumes that all 504 Million plus unique visitors were actually at work when they accessed and played pac man, during their regular working hours, not on break or lunch. Plus, their earnings would have to on average equal $25/hr (this is worldwide, mind you, not just in the US)
Sounds like a major stretch to me. Unless my calculations are wrong (which is very possible)
 
Those numbers sound ridiculously inflated. I waited until I got home to play Google PacMan, just in case I was being monitored at work...

Kyle :cool:
 
I just found a bug in the program...

I'm not sure how I triggered it,
but it happened after I ate a power pellet.

Instead of chasing the ghosts, I just wanted to clear the board,
(so I was avoiding them...)
and noticed that the ghosts were always staying blue.
They were never changing back to their their normal colors
and never resumed their "hunt" for PacMan

I was able to eat all the dots (except one)
and then eat the ghosts for full points.

I tired to reproduce this in another game and was not able to.

From what I remembered, this happened when I ate the third power pellet,
(which I believe was the bottom right pellet, but I'm not sure... ).

Let me know if anyone else trips over this bug.

... but try not to "waste" $120M ;-)

Steph
 
they are assuming that the people who were playing google pac man would have been working had they not been playing it. I beg to differ, I think plenty of those people regularly waste time on the net, texting or doing something other than work. It just so happens for a couple of days there was a focal point that could be used to measure a group of people all at once doing something. Which just happen to be google pac man.
 
if google pacman cost that much, man oh man i dont wanna know what face book, myspace and all that bull crap is costing the economy
 
Well first of all, Im on salary. Second, I spent a lot more than 36 seconds playing when I first went to google that day. All in all, it was a nice little break. BTW The google Pac Man was a lot easier that the arcade version.
 
I just found a bug in the program...

I'm not sure how I triggered it,
but it happened after I ate a power pellet.

Instead of chasing the ghosts, I just wanted to clear the board,
(so I was avoiding them...)
and noticed that the ghosts were always staying blue.
They were never changing back to their their normal colors
and never resumed their "hunt" for PacMan

Did you have Ms Pac-Man out there too? That happens when you have both playing.
 
Man, they need to show me how many government work hours are wasted/spent by governors and senators screwing the public with their mismanagement of tax-payer money!!!
 
frankly I dont see it wasting anything. If the people accessing that from work werent doing that, they would have been somewhere else on the internet, not working. Why do you think the were in there in the first place
 
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