Google Goes All Out for Its 19th Birthday with 19 Unique Games

It's Google's 19th birthday and the company wants users to have just as much fun as the company is having! The latest Doodle uses a surprise spinner to generate random games from popular Doodles of old. 

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The company even brought back its addictive Pac Man game from 2010. The software company RescueTime made headlines when it alleged that one Google Doodle game cost economies $120 million and over 4.8 million hours in lost productivity. The blog even said that Doodle game could've had more 'lost performance' had the company put the "insert coin" button to start the game in a more visible place.

Who knows how much time 19 games from today will cost in terms of productivity? (And, in full confession, this writer is giving herself five minutes each to play Doodle games while writing this story.)

nothing has made me feel old like seeing that it's Google's 19th birthday

— Michael Eisen (@mbeisen) September 27, 2017

You can even look at Google's previous birthday Doodles or rediscover some of your favorite Doodles ever. 

If you haven't tried Google birthday spinner today. Get on that right now.

— Shan Hindz (@PulldtriggaBOOM) September 27, 2017

Looking Back on 19 Years

Google co-founder Larry Page arrived at Stanford in 1997 to pursue a Ph.D. in computer science. Sergey Brin was assigned to show Page around campus. Brin became the company's other co-founder, and without that fortuitous meeting, who knows where Google would've headed? 

"This chance encounter was the happy surprise that started it all," noted the company's page. 

From that meeting, the two created a different type of search engine. Rather than rank results based on how many times appeared, the two figured out a system to rank websites based on relevance.

"We believed we could build a better search," Brin said in a 2005 interview with UC Berkeley News. "We had a simple idea that not all pages are created equal. Some are more important."

The guys initially named their creation "BackRub" due to the backlinks used to determine a site's rank. However, they eventually opted for a different spelling of the word "googol" (the number 1 with 100 zeros following it). Page and Brin wanted the name to represent the seemingly infinite number of information their search engine could provide. 

From there, the company took off becoming the tech behemoth it is today. 

There's even a reason behind the Google Doodles. Page wanted the company to keep an artistic side rather than be completely tech-centered. 

"I do think there is an important artistic component in what we do," Page said in an interview with Fortune. "As a technology company I've tried to really stress that."

And as for the rest of the company, it continues to focus efforts on driverless cars, developing AI technology, and growing a neural network to help out its users. It will continue to be a verb as people "google" answers to a variety of questions. And, for Brin, the company will keep doing 'good.'

"We have tried to define precisely what it means to be a force for good -- always do the right, ethical thing," Brin said. "Ultimately, 'Don't be evil' seems the easiest way to summarize it."