Polybius is an urban legend concerning in a fictitious 1981 arcade game. The legend describes the game as part of a government-run crowdsourced psychology experiment based in Portland, Oregon. Gameplay supposedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player. These few publicly staged arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data-mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Allegedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines disappeared from the arcade market.
The story of Polybius[]
The legend claims that in 1981, the arcade cabinet caused nightmares and hallucinations in players, leading at least one person to suicide. Several people supposedly became anti-gaming activists, after playing Polybius. One of the oldest urban legends regarding video games, Polybius has entered popular culture, and numerous fangames exist as attempts to recreate the game from numerous accounts of its nature.
References in The Simpsons episodes[]
The Simpsons would later feature Polybius in a S18 E3 episode "Please Homer, Don't Hammer Em". In the arcade, the game machine can easily be seen, supposedly constructed as an experiment by the U.S. government.