Since When Did You Give a Crap About Pac-Man?

Yesterday Google replaced its logo with an interactive Google-fied version of Pac-Man to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the game.

And the web went wild.

It trended on Twitter. It was in the news. In the news for goodness sakes.

But wait, since when did you care about Pac-Man?

If you walked into a bar and saw it, you’d groan and wonder why they didn’t have something cool like Golden Tee (yes, golf games can be cool).

If you went to a gaming website, you wouldn’t give a second thought and you’d play Bejeweled or Scrabble.

If Google simply had a link beside their search button that said “Do you want to play Pac-Man now?” you probably wouldn’t be very interested.

But somehow, when you came to Google expecting to see a witty image and instead received a game, you were thrilled.  It was an unexpected present.

Google is smart, and this was a great implementation of something that, by itself, isn't overly impressive. They demonstrated that by putting something normal somewhere unexpected, you can make people happy, generate interest, and provoke conversation.

And yes, it was fun.  But let's face it, a web-based version of an ancient game really isn't that amazing.  So why the fervor?  Did you tweet about it?  Why were you so excited?