Polybius - The Video Game of Death

Polybius is an arcade video game from 1981 which is said to give players a variety of psychological side effects. The game supposedly gave players amnesia, insomnia, nightmares and even caused some people to commit suicide. Yes, you heard that correctly. Apparently, the game could drive people to commit suicide.

Did this game really exist? At the moment, there is no such evidence to suggest that this game ever existed. It is seen to be nothing more than an urban legend. But yet, some claim to have played the game and few have said to be involved in its development. Let’s look at the story in more detail.

It is said that Polybius started to appear in a few isolated video game arcades across Portland, Oregon in 1981. The type of game is somewhat disputed, some say the game was a space shooter similar to Tempest (a popular space shooter developed by Atari) or a puzzle game which involved mazes and problem solving. Although the game caused side effects in players, it was said to be extremely popular, and caused players to be almost addicted to it. It started to turn into a craze and people would queue for hours just to play. Sometimes people would even start arguments or fights over who had the next turn to play.

Every few days, the infamous men in black would show up at the arcades (they always seem to crop up in every conspiracy theory/weird story) and collect data from the machine. This data allegedly showed what psychological side effects the game had on players. In the long term, Polybius was said to cause people to stop playing video games and even cause some to become anti-gaming activists.

Apparently, the game was developed by a company called "Sinneslöschen" which if translated into English means "sense delete" or "sensory deprivation".

Approximately, only a month after the game was released in the arcades, the game was taken away, never to be seen again. Still to this day, no one has discovered a genuine Polybius machine. If you search the internet, you will find home built machines or forgeries, but nothing more. A few people have said to have found a machine, but these have never been proven to be true.

Today, people have created reproductions of what the game allegedly looked like, and you can even download some of them to play for yourself. 

Okay, so that's the story, now let’s look at some facts.

Do people get side effects from playing video games? Yes, some people experience nausea and headaches whilst playing video games for a long period of time. Also, some people who suffer with photosensitive epilepsy can have seizures when exposed to certain light patterns. However, these side effects are far from causing people to commit suicide. 

In 1981, an East German company called VEB Polytechnik created an arcade game called "Poly Play". The game was only released in East Germany and the exact number created is unknown, but very few exist today. It consisted of a total of eight different games, including an imitation of Pac-Man.

A Poly Play arcade machine

The game shares a very similar name to Polybius and was created by a German company, much like the apparent creator of Polybius, Sinneslöschen. Most people assume this is what the Polybius legend is based off. 

Also, the game is associated with the space shooter, Tempest. Why? Well, the prototype version of Tempest caused some people to have epileptic seizures whilst playing the game. 

Some people believe that Polybius was a US government mind control test, and they wanted to see how the game would influence people. But, has the US government ever carried out mind control experiments and projects? Yes, and on more than one occasion.

I'm sure most of you have heard of Project MKULTRA. This project was conducted by the CIA, and consisted of drug induced mind control experiments, typically using LSD and was carried out throughout the US in the 1950's.

Another project, and probably the most disturbing one, was called Project ARTICHOKE. Some of you might have heard of the film, The Manchurian Candidate. In the movie, a US soldier is turned into an unwilling assassin by using hypnosis and drugs. The soldier then has no prior knowledge of his killing. He turns into an assassin by seeing a queen of hearts playing card and once the killing is completed, he has no recognition of it.  

But, in short, the US did attempt to create a real Manchurian candidate. However, there is no evidence to suggest that they were ever successful. The goal of this project was to create an unwilling assassin and once triggered by a word, symbol or other stimulus would attempt to kill his/her designated target. Sounds crazy, right? But it did happen.

Getting back on track, let’s look at when this legend started. It started to circulate the internet in the early 2000's and at this time was the first most people had ever heard of the game. If the game really did exist, nobody seemed to mention it for over 20 years. That seems a little strange to me.

Did Polybius ever exist? Or is it just merely an urban legend? Some people don't think so, but most see it as a myth. Unless somebody finds a working machine or somebody provides adequate evidence, we may never know the answer to that question.

I hope you guys enjoyed this article! I know it’s something a little different from me, but I hope you were intrigued by what you read and learnt something new in the process. This is simply a one off thing and normal Jiu-Jitsu related posts will continue in the next few days.

Catch you later,

Giordano