The myth of Polybius: The game that posed a danger to those who played it
Get your tin hats on, because I’m going conspiratorial. I’m turning my attention to a game that posed a danger to those who played it, with question marks raised over its very existence. There’s a good chance you’ve already heard of it: Polybius.
Let’s step back to November 1981. The Cold War has been raging for decades, and America is seeped in distrust and fear. Suspicion and paranoia are high as tensions between the US and Russia have been tightening over the prospect of nuclear war. Long after the space race and the heart-stopping moment of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and yet the threat of annihilation is as prevalent now as it was back then.
Michael Jackson, Blondie, Queen, and Journey are all belting out tunes, while Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Mad Max make for pleasant distractions for the masses. But amongst all that, video games have risen to the mainstream, and arcades now reside almost everywhere. Donkey Kong, Space Invaders, and Pac-Man all vie for the spare change in the pockets of every teen in America.
Bathed in neon light, blaring out their 8-bit sounds atop well-trodden and garishly patterned carpets, arcades are just about the most popular places in America. And in Portland, Oregon, one arcade plays host to a game that has since become the stuff of legend. That game was called Polybius, and its story is one for Mulder and Scully.
What is Polybius?
Polybius was an arcade cabinet that seemingly just appeared in a couple of arcades in the suburbs of Portland, about as limited as limited releases can get. The unit was nondescript; a black box without a name or any other identifiable features, while the game was little more than a puzzler with intricate geometric patterns, rambling series of numbers, letters, and vibrant shapes dancing around the screen.
The game was hypnotic, so the legend goes. Instantly addictive too, and it had some dangerous psychological consequences for those who dared use it. Amnesia, night terrors, vomiting, and severe anxiety are some of the supposed lesser effects. Suicidal thoughts, seizures, and hallucinations the more severe. Allegedly, it even led to the disappearances of a few individuals who had played the game.
These side effects weren’t accidental. They were part of the design. Men in black suits would periodically visit the machines, collecting the data on players’ reactions instead of emptying them of their quarters and dimes. Again the Cold War paranoia rings true here, as this wouldn’t be the first time that the US government has played literal mind games. In the 70s, the CIA’s MK-Ultra program dabbled in the use of hallucinogens to attempt to control the populace.
So, was it just some out-of-hand lie that grew into something the perpetrator never expected? Or, does the unit truly exist, and now sits in a crate, gathering dust alongside the Ark of the Covenant in a warehouse at some undisposed location never to be seen again?
Myth busted
A game with such a dangerous potential should have jeopardised the very future of gaming itself. And yet, the games industry not only survived, but it thrived: it’s stronger than it has ever been, and continues to grow. How can that be, with the threat it posed?
“It sure has caused a lot of commotion,” remarks journalist Cat DeSpira, talking on a BBC documentary, “for a game that never was.” She grew up in Portland and was a frequenter of the Lloyd Center arcade, where one of the mysterious Polybius units allegedly was. If anyone should have first-hand news of this, it would be her. And yet, she never heard about the game until years later. “I’m like, what? I’d never heard of it… Lloyd Center Arcade was my arcade… there is no way anything could happen there that nobody would see.”
As far as DeSpira is concerned, it’s a complete untruth. But perhaps the units were elsewhere. If she had no first-hand experience, is there any plausibility to what could have happened to others?
To her, the game’s side effects can be explained away as slight exaggerations of the experiences of ‘marathon players’ when chasing high scores. Games like Asteroids would be playable indefinitely and marathoners would seek to play for as long as possible to break high scores—many would try and play for as long as sixty hours. “Marathon playing is dangerous. People after twenty-four hours start hallucinating. They start having convulsions.”
As for the supposed shady agents who would come and check the units from time to time, again, it appears this may have been an exaggeration of the truth as well. “There was a lot of illegal activity in arcades that was being monitored by not only the government and federal agencies but by the local police… there’s the instance of police raids… that tells me, almost definitely that somebody witnessed that and passed that on, and it got embellished over time. ”
And for the nondescript, black boxes that reportedly turned up around the place? “Portland was a test site for lots of game companies, and test games came in black boxes.”
Fake news
If a resident of Portland — and an avid gamer at that — never heard of the legend until years later, where did the myth of Polybius spring up from?
The first record of the game appeared on CoinOp.org, a database dedicated to classic arcade games. The page was created in 1998, some seventeen years after the events supposedly took place. That may be why DeSpira has no recollection of it. The listing interestingly states that a ROM (a digital version of the game) had surfaced. Outside of that listing, there appears to be nothing else that corroborates that claim.
It also lists the copyright belonging to a company called Sinneslöschen. Once again, this is a company that doesn’t appear to exist either. Roughly translated, it means “sense deletion”, which can’t be a coincidence when you couple it with where “Polybius” derives from. The ancient Greek philosopher was from Arcadia of all places and was a big fan of cryptography and puzzles.
Kurt Koller was the man who owned the site, made the listing, and even tipped off GamePro, one of the largest multi-platform gaming magazines at the time. It’s unclear if Koller fabricated the myth or just collated the stories he’d heard over the years. Things take an even more surreal turn when someone called Steven Roach comments on it, seemingly shedding light on the game’s development which he was involved in.
Roach claims that Marek Vachousek, a programmer with a background in Greek mythology, named the game Polybius for its bold and mysterious connotations. The game featured inspired graphics, puzzle elements and addictive gameplay, making it a hit during playtesting.
However, the company delayed its release due to concerns over the potential unknown physical and mental effects of its intense gameplay, leading to divided opinions among the board of directors. This delay frustrated the development team, who eventually disbanded to avoid the pressures of strict deadlines and potential professional repercussions. The game was never widely distributed, and the developers received only basic payment, leading to lasting resentment towards the project.
This all sounds very insightful, filling in a lot of blanks on this game. But a YouTube documentarian, Ahoy, in his video on Polybius, claims to have tracked down the person behind the Steven Roach account to find that the comments are completely fabricated.
The spreading of the urban legend
And yet, over the years, the myth of Polybius kept popping up. It’s even made its way into popular culture, referenced by The Simpsons, visual novel Arcade Spirits (where the header image comes from), and eagle-eyed viewers of Loki would have spotted a Polybius unit loitering in the background. How did Polybius manage to seep into the public consciousness, even going as far as getting the attention of the BBC here in the UK, when even today the only evidence of its existence is hearsay from people with zero credibility?
It’s not hard to imagine. Before the widespread internet, fact-checking was more challenging. If something was in the papers or seen on the news, it was harder to verify. Today, even in the digital age, people often believe what they see on social media platforms like TikTok because it affirms their beliefs.
If there’s one thing to take from this, it’s that if you can put the right kind of fear behind something, you can go a long way to making people believe a lie.
If you wish to go further down this rabbit hole, check out Radiotopia’s The Polybius Conspiracy podcast series, and the very intensive documentary by Ahoy, who exposed Steven Roach.
But should you see some men in black hovering around a machine the next time you’re in an arcade, don’t worry. It’s not clandestine mind control, they’re just trying to hit that high score on Asteroids. Probably.
