Google recognized the 30th anniversary of the classic arcade game Pac-Man on Friday by converting its online search home page into a playable version of the game. The game was built using tools such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript, so it’s playable on the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone as well as desktop and laptop computers.
Namco’s Pac-Man first hit arcades on May 22, 1980 and was popular enough that it led to the release of the successful Ms. Pac-Man, along with other not-so-popular titles like Jr. Pac-Man and Baby Pac-Man.
Pac-Man, Google style.
Following Google’s somewhat antagonistic stance towards Apple during its Google I/O keynote presentation earlier this week, the fact that game is playable on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad has been suggested to be a jab against Apple by showing the Internet search company can write iPhone OS-compatible apps without going through the App Store. It’s also been seen as a swing at Adobe, too, because Flash wasn’t used to build the game.
What’s more likely, however, is that Google simply used the tools that let it build the Web-based version of the game most efficiently, and the media has been trying to twist the choice into more than it really is.
Sometimes a video game is simply just a video game, and at least for today it doesn’t take a quarter to play.