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
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