Polybius | The Most Deadly Video Game in History | More Truth than Legend

in 1981. an arcade in portland was the scene of. countless gamers coming down with. migraines. having heart attacks seizures and. strokes local teens were suffering from. amnesia. and having hallucinations all due to a. mysterious game. that seemed to arrive out of thin air. the game was called polybius. and even though playing the game was. dangerous it was highly addictive. and caused some teens to become hyper.

aggressive. fights started breaking out of the. arcade one player was stabbed to death. all traced back to people who played. polybius now why would the government. allow the public to play such a. dangerous game. well because the government created it. let's find out why. [Music]. if you've never heard the urban legend. about polybius here's how it goes. in 1981 a portland arcade received a. video game called polybius. that had gameplay unlike anything anyone.

had ever seen before. the player would stare at random. geometric patterns and strange shapes. causing them to fall into a sort of. hypnotic state the game was known for. its psychedelic images. unsettling soundtrack and subliminal. messages. and if you play polybius it could cause. all kinds of physiological effects. amnesia anxiety night terrors aggression. insomnia. it could also cause physical effects. like migraine headaches. nausea vertigo even heart attacks and. strokes.

polybius was created by a company named. sinus lotion. which in german roughly translates to. sense deleting. after playing two portland teenagers. disappeared without a trace. some say they were abducted others say. they were recruited. now this game was so addictive that. players would line up around the block. and get into physical. fights in order to play it people. reported that the polybius machines. were watching players and collecting. data about them. that data was periodically retrieved by. men in black suits.

who serviced the machines and the story. goes that these men in black. could change the game's attributes in. order to elicit. different responses from the players. mind control. yep grab my hat please. thank you the game was only released in. two arcades and only for a short time. then it disappeared as quickly and as. quietly as it arrived never to be seen. again. now this is an urban legend and it's a. good one but how much of it is true. well actually more than most people.

but it think just any game you have been. recruited. to defend the frontier against. to get to the truth of the story of. polybius you have to dig pretty deep. and if you google polyvias you'll get a. bunch of blurry images of an arcade. cabinet there's no way to tell if these. are photoshopped or an. actual physical cabinet existed if one. did exist i. doubt there's photos of it also there's. only one known screen capture of the. game's title screen.

the screen cap shows the name of the. game the year copyright. and says it was developed by a company. named sinister now in german. this translates to sensory deprivation. or sense deleting but it's not a good. translation so probably not a native. german speaker. there's also no evidence of a company. ever existing in germany with the name. sinister. no company anywhere had that name so no. help there now the font used for the. title itself. is actually unusual for the time the. memory required to produce this effect.

was pretty significant in the early 80s. only games from huge companies like. nintendo and williams were known to put. so many resources into a title screen. and the screen. font is very close to a font used by. williams. but a couple of letters don't quite. match so again not much to go on now. there are a few sources that say. polybius was mentioned on usenet as. early as 1994. now for you young bucks use net news. groups were a type of global message. board used during the early days of the. internet and if something was happening. on the internet. there was a news group about it google.

has archived messages going back to the. beginning of usenet. but searches for polybius come up empty. and what about the gameplay itself. the sources claim that polybius was. vector-based similar to games like. tempest or battlezone. now tempest was a huge game at the time. and known for its unique graphics. so it's reasonable that people who are. playing arcade games in that time. remember tempest i definitely do. and battlezone was used by the military. as a training tool for tank crews. the army's version was called the. bradley trainer so the government.

creating arcade games. that's absolutely true now what about. the story that people would get sick. playing vector-based games like polybius. or tempest or actually die. after playing certain games turns out. this is also true. an open mind is easy to expand it might. even be a good idea to heed the advice. that one game player carries on his. shirt. maybe it's a warning in 1982 14 year old. michael lopez was playing tempest with. friends at the malibu grand prix arcade. in beaverton oregon.

he began to feel a weird sensation in. the back of his head. and he started losing his vision he. became dizzy stumbled outside the arcade. and threw up all over the parking lot he. then collapsed a few blocks from his. home screaming in pain. now apparently the game's flashing. lights and visual effects triggered a. migraine or a seizure. okay but then there's the case of jeff. daly who died after playing the game. berserk. that same year the daily had an unknown. congenital heart condition. apparently the stress of trying to break. the game's high score triggered a heart.

attack. same for peter bukowski of calumet city. who also died of heart failure while. playing berserk. also in calumet city two teenage boys. got into a fight over a game. and one stabbed the other to death and. then there's brian morrow who was. playing asteroids for 28 straight hours. trying to break the record. he got sick and collapsed now mauro was. pounding coca-colas for hours so it's. understandable that he'd get sick from. that. now he survived but when these stories. stack up. you can see how they can lead to. paranoia about the effects of playing.

video games. now it seems weird now but in the early. 80s video games were a new. phenomenon and like always parents are. suspicious of anything new. fun and seemingly addictive like playing. video games. can you really blame them now game. developers job. is to make a game so fun and immersive. and addictive. that you want to throw money at it i. mean that's just as true now as it was. back then. whether it's putting coins in a slot or. micro transactions in a mobile game the. psychology is the same.

game companies want you to give them. money and they want to give you hits a. dopamine. cool a role of a game company or any. corporation is to make money so nobody. disputes that they're transparent about. it. but people tend to be more suspicious of. the government than they are of. corporations. because the government not so. transparent no. now do government agencies really. conduct top secret operations using. video games at arcades. that's a rhetorical question right it is. because the answer is. yes they did.

fbi's records indicate that the agency. actually. was monitoring and raiding arcades in. portland at the same time that players. were collapsing. arcades had reputations of being places. for drug activity. gambling and petty crime like. pickpocketing now though the stories. were sensationalized in the media. of course people really were gambling. over pinball games. kids really were buying and smoking weed. in arcades so how does this factor into. the polybius legend well during one. sting operation. the fbi placed microphones and cameras.

inside video games to gather evidence on. criminal activity. one of the games they used was tempest. tempest again. yep now the fbi didn't care that tempest. was a vector game. all they cared about was that the. cabinet had large bevels and a lot of. room behind the glass. perfect for cameras and this fbi. operation was so extensive. that in the early 80s there was actually. a shortage of tempest cabinets in the. pacific northwest. because the feds were all over it and. apparently the feds weren't very. discreet about picking up their camera.

footage. agents dressed in suits and ties would. show up in an arcade. open the machine and pull out videotape. and then leave they didn't. even bother with the coins okay but what. about the cia conducting mind control. experiments. can that possibly be true that's another. rhetorical question. of course it's true it's true. the cia became convinced the communists. had found the key. to brainwashing now the americans had to. unlock the mystery of mind control. early in the cold war the cia was.

convinced that communists had discovered. a drug that would allow them to control. human minds. in response the cia began its own secret. program called. mkultra the goal was to find a mind. control drug that could be weaponized. against enemies. mk ultra which operated in the 1950s and. 60s. was created and run by a chemist named. sydney gottlieb now some experiments. were covertly funded at universities and. research centers. while others were conducted in american. prisons and in detention centers in. japan.

germany and the philippines and subjects. endured psychological torture ranging. from electric shock. to very high doses of lsd the gottlieb. realized that mind control was a. two-part process. first you had to destroy the existing. mind then you had to find a way to. insert a new mind into the void. now the cia didn't get too far creating. mines but they did a hell of a job. destroying them. the top secret nature of mkultra makes. it impossible to measure the human cost. of the experiments. why is that oh because the cia destroyed.

the files. yeah that doesn't sound legal it's not. that's your government people. enjoy now we don't know how many people. died during mk ultra but we know some. did. and many lives were permanently. destroyed and the us government has been. experimenting on people against their. will for as long as the government has. existed. so it's not far of a stretch to think. they would use video games for this. purpose. maybe they have they have maybe they are. they are. what the united states government did.

was shameful. and i am sorry. now these stories are all true but none. of them are actually connected to a game. called polybius no such game has ever. been found and if you find a game called. polybius it's either fan made or it's a. hoax. freeware developer rogue synapse is. known for creating fictional arcade. games like the one from the last. starfighter. they created a game named polybius in. 2007 and their version attempts to. recreate the gameplay described in the. urban legend. including psychedelic visuals and.

subliminal messages it's pretty creepy. it's kind of fun i'll link it below you. can play it's free yeah. no no thanks i'm good coward oh speaking. of the last starfighter that's a movie. from the 80s where an intergalactic. space force uses a video game to recruit. star pilots. this probably leaked into the polybius. legend allegedly players were. disappearing. and it was said they were either. abducted by the government or. were actually recruited by the. government. i've seen him come and i've seen him go. but you're the best my boy light years.

ahead of the competition. [Music]. so the name polybius was probably chosen. specifically to troll people who are. into conspiracies. what polybius was a greek philosopher. born in 200 bc in megalopolis. and he's known for puzzles and. cryptography and you might have heard of. the polybius square which is a type of. cipher named for him. polybius also famously said you should. never believe anything. unless it could be verified with hard. evidence and witnesses. so yeah i think whoever started this.

story was trolling us. now the urban legend of polybius emerged. in february of 2000. when a listing for the game showed up on. coinop.org a website that covers arcade. games now the. entry for polybius listed the game as. having been copyrighted in 1981. but no copyright exists and it talks. about bizarre rumors and says the game's. history is unknown. the person believed to have created the. post and this entire legend. is kurt coller the owner of coin op. after coin op created their listing for. polybius.

collar tipped off game pro magazine. about it a game pro referenced polybius. in an article about secrets and lies in. video games. and as to whether polybius was a secret. or a lie gamepro said the story was. inconclusive that was a big deal in the. early 2000s. game pro was one of the largest gaming. magazines in the country so this. generated interest. a few months later the story landed on. slashdot. and if you remember the internet in the. early 2000s a mention on slashdot was a. huge deal. a legend was born now since then.

polybius has been all over the media. the subject of countless investigations. it's even been referenced in pop culture. hmm never saw this one before when an. unsolved mystery gets as much attention. as this. there's going to be people claiming that. they were involved one notorious hoaxer. is someone named steven roach who posted. on coin op. that he worked on the game did he no his. story has been investigated and debunked. but it got him plenty of attention and. if kurt caller invented the story to. drum up traffic for his website. look like a child worked like a charm.

so is the story of polybius true well. the psychology behind addictive games. and social media platforms like facebook. are certainly a form of mind control the. us government has a long history of. experimenting on its citizens so there's. no doubt in my mind that the government. is doing that right now. now people can become addicted to video. games and have gotten sick and even died. playing them. government agents were using arcade. games in secret operations. all of these things happened and they. all happened in portland about the same.

time. so no i don't think the game ever. existed but the rest of the story. is completely true and that's why as far. as urban legends go. the story of polybius is just about. perfect. thanks for hanging out with us today my. name is aj that's hecklefish this has. been the y-files if you had fun or. learned anything today comment like. subscribe. share it really helps out the channel. and what do you think about polybius was. it real you have any more information. about it. let us know in the comments and until. next time be safe be kind. and know that you are appreciated.

[Music]. you.