Google 'Zerg Rush' and let the game begin

Summary: If you head to Google today and search for 'Zerg Rush,' you’ll get the appropriate search results and soon find your page bombarded by an onslaught of 'O's that will eat away at your results.

By Libe Goad for Gamification | April 27, 2012 -- 07:47 GMT (00:47 PDT)

Follow @ZDNet

If you head to Google today and search for 'Zerg Rush,' you’ll get the appropriate search results and soon find your page bombarded by an onslaught of 'O's that will eat away at your results.

You can dispatch the hungry ‘O’s with a few clicks of the mouse, but like the fast-moving ‘Zerg’ enemies in the popular PC game series StarCraft, you’ll soon find your page overwhelmed and the ‘O’s do their own version of a friendly victory dance by lining up to form two ‘G’s, which I presume is short for "good game." There’s an option to share your score on Google+, or clear the screen and try again.

I'm not sure there's a practical method, or reason, for gamifying the search engine -- it's usually a very transactional experience. But, if there’s any way to make using a search engine more fun, I have yet to think of a better example than this, along with the often delightful Google Doodles. Bravo, Google. Bravo.

Topics: Mobility, Apps, Google, Hardware

Kick off your day with ZDNet's daily email newsletter. It's the freshest tech news and opinion, served hot. Get it.

Talkback

2 comments

Log in or register to join the discussion

Not really Gamification

Rather, more just Google being Google. See 'Tilt' and 'Do a barrel roll'

Aerowind

27 April, 2012 10:47

Reply Vote

Not exactly gamification

Gamification is leading a user to gain some knowledge through game mechanics (doing some things, funny or not, or solving some tasks etc). What Google does, isn't purely gamification because the user isn't involved into reaching the aim of searching (which is for him as he opened this page), and in addition, it is likely that user is deliberately typing "zerg rush". It could have been called gamification if the user was involved into doing something to get search results as a result. But what about gamification is, is that the users share their success with other players so that they maybe want to outdo it at another time. I may be misconcepted about gamification but this is what I think about "zerg rush" search request through the prism of what I think gamification is.