Текущая версия страницы пока не проверялась опытными участниками и может значительно отличаться от версии, проверенной 22 ноября 2023 года; проверки требует 1 правка.
Аркадный автомат Polybius, созданный Rogue Synapse
Polybius - якобы существующая игра для аркадных игровых автоматов, выпущенная в 1981 году и известная благодаря городской легенде, начало распространения которой прослеживается с 2000 года. Не существует авторитетных источников, доказывавших бы факт существования оригинальной версии игры[1], однако легенда стала источником вдохновения для создания нескольких бесплатных и коммерческих электронных игр с таким же названием.
Городская легенда гласит, что игра являлась частью проводившегося американским правительством краудсорсингового психологического эксперимента, а её игровой процесс вызывал у игроков сильные психоактивные эффекты и игровую зависимость. Несколько размещённых в общедоступных игровых залах автоматов якобы посещались "людьми в чёрном" с целью сбора данных и анализа этих эффектов. Впоследствии все аркадные машины с Polybius якобы исчезли с рынка игровых автоматов[2].
Своё название Polybius предположительно получила от имени древнегреческого историка Полибия[1], который был известен своим утверждением, что историки никогда не должны писать о том, что они не могут проверить посредством беседы с очевидцами.
Содержание
1 История
1.1 Городская легенда
1.2 Анализ
2 Наследие
2.1 Компьютерные игры
2.2 Игра для Atari 2600
2.3 Игра для PlayStation 4
3 В массовой культуре
4 Комментарии
5 Примечания
История
Городская легенда
Профиль с названием игры был добавлен на Интернет-ресурс coinop.org, посвящённый аркадным автоматам, 6 февраля 2000 года[3][комм. 1]. В записи упоминаются название "Polybius" и 1981 год в качестве даты регистрации авторских прав[4], хотя на деле авторские права на такое название никогда никем не регистрировались[5]. Автор записи в её описании заявлял, что располагает образом ПЗУ игры и якобы смог извлечь из него текстовые фрагменты, в том числе "1981 Sinneslöschen"[4]. Остальная информация об игре помечена в записи как "неизвестная"[1], а в разделе "Об игре" были изложены "причудливые слухи", составившие легенду[4].
Запись повествует о "неслыханной" новой (на момент выхода) аркадной игре, появившейся в нескольких пригородах Портленда, штат Орегон, в 1981 году, что было редкостью для того времени. Игра описана как пользовавшаяся настоящей популярностью вплоть до зависимости[1], - вокруг машин якобы выстраивались очереди, в которых часто случались драки для выяснения того, кто будет играть дальше. Городская легенда гласит, что автоматы посещались "людьми в чёрном", собиравшими с них неизвестные данные[1][6], предположительно проверяя реакцию на психоактивные эффекты игры. Игроки предположительно страдали от ряда неприятных побочных эффектов, включавших амнезию, бессонницу, ночные ужасы и галлюцинации[7][8].
Примерно через месяц после предполагаемого выхода в 1981 году Polybius, как сообщается, бесследно исчез[9]. Бен Сильверман из Yahoo! Games отмечал: "К сожалению, нет никаких доказательств того, что игра когда-либо существовала, а тем более что она превращала своих игроков в лепечущих лунатиков... Тем не менее Polybius имеет культовый статус как атавизм более параноидальной в отношении технологий эры"[7].
Компания, заявленная в большинстве профилей игры её разработчиком, имеет название "Sinneslöschen"[1]. Это слово журналистом Брайаном Дэннингом охарактеризовано как "не совсем идиоматически немецкое", означающее "смысловое удаление" или "сенсорная депривация". Такой перевод сделан на основе частей "sinne" - "чувство" и "löschen" - "тушить" или "удалять"[1].
За некоторое время до сентября 2003 года владелец coinop.org направил информацию о Polybius в журнал GamePro[3]. Polybius удостоился довольно значительного внимания в сентябрьском выпуске GamePro в сентябре 2003 года в рамках сюжета о видеоиграх под названием "Тайны и обманы"[10]. Статья объявила факт существования игры "неубедительным"[11]. Snopes.com отрицает существование игры и рассматривает её как современную версию слухов 1980-х годов о "людях в чёрном", посещавших аркадные залы и записывавших имена результативных игроков в аркады. Это, по мнению источника, привело к гипотезе о том, что правительство проводило какой-то эксперимент и отправляло "подсознательные сообщения" игрокам[12]. Этими сообщениями, в частности, были, по некоторым данным, "Повинуйся!" и "Потребляй!"[13].
Анализ
Американский скептик и журналист Брайан Дэннинг считает, что Polybius является городской легендой, выросшей из преувеличенных и искажённых слухов о ранней версии игры Tempest, которая вызывала у некоторых игроков проблемы со здоровьем в виде фоточувствительной эпилепсии, морской болезни и головокружения[1]. Он отмечает, что два игрока в Портленде в тот же день в 1981 году почувствовали себя плохо: один слёг с сильной мигренью после игры в Tempest[1], а другой страдал от болей в желудке после игры в Asteroids после 28-часовой снимавшейся попытки побить мировой рекорд в этой аркаде[14]. Дэннинг также сообщает, что сотрудники ФБР совершили рейд на несколько аркадных залов в этом районе спустя всего десять дней после этих случаев, поскольку владельцы залов подозревались в использовании аркадных машин для азартных игр, а в ходе рейда были задействованы агенты, наблюдавшие за автоматами на предмет признаков несанкционированного доступа к ним и записывавшие высшие результаты, достигнутые игроками. Дэннинг предполагает, что два этих события смешались в появившейся городской легенде о контролируемых правительством аркадных машинах, расстраивающих здоровье игроков. Он считает, что такая легенда должна была возникнуть к 1984 году, поскольку прослеживается в сюжете фильма "Последний звёздный боец", где подросток завербовывается "человеком в чёрном", наблюдавшим за тем, как тот играл в тайно разработанную аркадную игру[1].
По мнению Дэннинга, "Sinneslöschen" представляет собой пример слова, которое придумал бы не говорящий по-немецки человек, если бы попытался создать сложное слово, используя англо-немецкий словарь[1].
Наследие
Компьютерные игры
В 2007 году компания - разработчик бесплатных игр для PC и создатель аркадных автоматов Rogue Synapse зарегистрировала домен sinnesloschen.com и выложила на нём бесплатную загружаемую игру под названием Polybius для PC. Дизайн игры частично основан на гипотетическом описании реальной аркадной машины Polybius, размещённом на форуме человеком по имени Стивен Роуч, утверждающим, что он работал над созданием оригинала[15].
Rogue Synapse"s Polybius представляет собой двумерный шутер, похожий на Star Castle, с чрезвычайно интенсивными визуальными эффектами. Кроме того, он в точности дублирует отличительный титульный экран и шрифт, упомянутые в городской легенде, и совместим с PC, установленными внутри аркадных машин. В результате фанаты смогли создать "игровые аркадные машины Polybius" с использованием этой версии, что подпитывало популярность городской легенды. В сообщениях большинства людей, утверждающих, что они нашли "потерянную аркадную машину Polybius", речь идёт именно об этой игре.
Для завершения формирования иллюзии владелец Rogue Synapse доктор Эстиль Ванс основал в 2007 году корпорацию в Техасе с названием Sinnesloschen (без диакритики)[16]. Он передал ей товарный знак "Rogue Synapse"[17] и новый зарегистрированный товарный знак "Polybius"[18]. Автор не претендует на то, что его версия Polybius является подлинным оригиналом, чётко заявив на своей странице в Интернете, что это "попытка воссоздать игру Polybius в таком виде, в каком она могла существовать в 1981 году"[19].
Игра для Atari 2600
Крис Тримен, владелец Lost Classics, стал автором игры под названием Polybius для самодельного варианта Atari 2600. Игровой процесс, как утверждает Тримен, не основан на оригинальной игре, и автор выражает сомнение в том, что аппаратное обеспечение Atari 2600 в принципе способно воспроизводить что-либо близкое к заявленной оригинальной аркадной игре. Это простая игра-стрелялка с прицелом, похожая на Star Raiders, за исключением того, что иногда экран мигает подсознательными сообщениями, такими как "DEATH", "PAIN" и "SUFFER"[20]. Тримен продал игру 5 октября 2013 года в Portland Retro Gaming Expo ограниченным тиражом в 30 картриджей[21].
Игра для PlayStation 4
В 2016 году компания Llamasoft анонсировала игру под названием Polybius для приставки PlayStation 4 с поддержкой PlayStation VR[22]. Polybius был добавлен в магазин PlayStation во вторник 9 мая 2017 года[23]. В рамках начальной части маркетинговой кампании соавтор Джефф Минтер утверждал, что ему якобы разрешили поиграть на оригинальной аркадной машине Polybius на складе в Бэйсингстоке[24]. Позднее он признался, что игра была вдохновлена городской легендой, но не пытается воспроизводить предполагаемый игровой процесс оригинала[25].
В массовой культуре
Отсылки к легенде Polybius нашли отражение в ряде телесериалов и телепередач. В частности, в эпизоде мультсериала "Симпсоны" под названием "Please Homer, Don"t Hammer "Em", вышедшем в 2006 году, автомат Polybius представлен стоящим в зале со старыми аркадными машинами 1970-х и 1980-х годов, с одной кнопкой и написанными на нём словами "собственность правительства США", что является отсылкой к городской легенде. Согласно сюжету эпизода, за автоматом ведут наблюдения "люди в чёрном", которые его неоднократно изымали.[26][27]
Легенда о Polybius фигурирует в Doomsday Arcade - видеосериале, выпускаемом журналом The Escapist.[28] Она также является частью сюжетной подоплёки в романе "Armada: The Novel" Эрнеста Клайна.[29]
Безуспешные попытки розыска оригинальной версии игры стали сюжетом непродолжительного американского телесериала Blister.[30]
Была также основой четвёртой серии первого сезона сериала "Измерение 404".
150 серия интернет-шоу AVGN была посвящена игровому автомату Polybius.
Версия игры для Playstation 4 появляется в клипе Less Than[en] американской индастриал-рок-группы Nine Inch Nails.
Также автомат Polybius появляется на заднем плане в одной и сцен 5 эпизода сериала "Ло́ки" под названием "Путешествие в тайну". Это "камео" вызвало бурное обсуждение в социальных сетях, в том числе потому, что игра кажется катастрофически неотъемлемой частью мультивселенной и является ключевым примером взаимодействия Локи с заговором и реальностью.[31]
Комментарии
Хотя Coinop указывает датой создания страницы 1998 год, она, по-видимому, была установлена по умолчанию на эту дату, а дата её появления в базе данных неизвестна.
Polybius (urban legend)
Article
Talk
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An alleged start screen, attached to an article on coinop.org.[1]
Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game from an urban legend.[2] 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. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.
This urban legend has persisted in video game journalism and through continued interest, and it has inspired video games with the same name.
Legend
A mocked-up Polybius cabinet made by Rogue Synapse
The urban legend says that in 1981, when new arcade games were uncommon, an unheard-of new arcade game appeared in several suburbs of Portland, Oregon. The game was popular to the point of addiction,[2] with lines forming around the machines and often resulting in fights over who would play next. The machines were visited by men in black, who collected unknown data from the machines,[2] allegedly testing responses to the game's psychoactive effects. Players supposedly suffered from a series of unpleasant side effects, including seizures, amnesia, insomnia, night terrors, and hallucinations.[3] Approximately one month after its supposed release in 1981, Polybius is said to have disappeared without a trace.[1]
The company named in most accounts of the game is Sinneslöschen. The word is described by writer Brian Dunning as "not-quite-idiomatic German" (a word constructed outside the norms of German-language usage and grammar) meaning "sense delete" or "sensory deprivation". If it was real German vernacular, "Sinneslöschen" would be pronounced [ˈzɪnəslœʃn̩]. Its meanings are derived from the German words Sinne ("senses") and löschen ("to extinguish" or "to delete"), though the way they are combined is not standard German; Sinnlöschen would be more correct.[2]
The game has the same name as the classical Greek historian Polybius, born in Arcadia and known for his assertion that historians should never report what they cannot verify through interviews with eyewitnesses.[4][5]
The first online mention of Polybius is a coinop.org article started in 1998, which extends the legend by claiming possession of a ROM image file from the 1981 arcade machine, claiming to have played it, and on May 16, 2009, promising to bring future updates pending an investigatory flight to Kyiv, Ukraine.[1][4] The first known printed mention of Polybius, exposing the legend to a mass-market audience,[2] is in the September 2003 issue of GamePro. The feature story "Secrets and Lies" declared the game's existence to be "inconclusive",[6] helping to both spark curiosity and spread the story.
Reception
A E-FOIA request for Polybius returned no results.
The alleged original Polybius arcade game is generally believed to have never existed, and the legend a hoax.[2] Snopes.com, a fact-checking website, concludes the game is a modern-day version of 1980s rumors of "men in black". This led to the hypothesis that the government was hosting some sort of experiment and sending subliminal messages to the players.[7][failed verification] Magazines and mainstream news of the early 1980s do not mention Polybius.[8] Aside from the mockup cabinets and games inspired by the myth, no authentic cabinets or ROM dumps have ever been documented.[4]
Skeptics and researchers differ on when, how, and why the story of Polybius began. American producer and author Brian Dunning believes it is an urban legend that grew out of a mixture of influences in the 1980s. He notes real news reports that two players fell ill in Portland on the same day in 1981, one collapsing with a migraine headache after playing Tempest,[2] and another suffering from stomach pain after playing Asteroids for 28 hours in a filmed attempt to break a world record at the same arcade.[9] Dunning records that the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided several video arcades in the area just ten days later, where the owners were suspected of using the machines for gambling, and the lead-up to the raid involved FBI agents monitoring arcade cabinets for evidence of tampering and recording high scores. Dunning suggests that these two events were combined into an urban legend about government-monitored arcade machines making players ill. He believes that such a myth must have been established by 1984, and that it influenced the plot of the film The Last Starfighter, in which a teenager is recruited by aliens who monitor him playing a covertly-developed arcade game. Dunning considers "Sinneslöschen" to be the kind of name that a non-German speaker would generate if they tried to create a compound word using an English-to-German dictionary.[2]
Internet writer Patrick Kellogg believes that players claiming to remember having played or seen Polybius since the 1980s may actually be recalling the video game Cube Quest. It was released in arcades in 1983 as a shooting game played from laserdisc. Kellogg describes its visuals as "revolutionary" and far ahead of typical games of the time. He states that frequent breakdowns are typical of laserdisc games, so this one was often removed from arcades.[10]
Ben Silverman of Yahoo! Games remarked: "Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the game ever existed, no less turned its users into babbling lunatics ... Still, Polybius has enjoyed cult-like status as a throwback to a more technologically paranoid era."[3] Ripley's Believe It or Not! called Polybius "the most dangerous video game to never exist".[11] Offbeat Oregon History says "There remains a possibility-a tiny one, really too small to measure - that the legend is true."[12] Portland Monthly calls it "one of Portland's craziest urban legends", comparing it to the CIA's MKUltra mind control program of the 1950s-1970s.[13]
Legacy
Video games
In 2007, freeware developers and arcade constructors Rogue Synapse published a free downloadable game titled Polybius for Windows at sinnesloschen.com. Its design is partly based on a contested description of the Polybius arcade machine posted on a forum by an individual named Steven Roach who claimed to have worked on the original.[14] To complete the illusion, Rogue Synapse's owner Dr. Estil Vance founded a Texas-based corporation bearing the name Sinnesloschen (without umlaut) in 2007.[15] He transferred to it the "Rogue Synapse" trademark[16] and a newly registered trademark on "Polybius".[17] Its website says that it is an "attempt to recreate the Polybius game as it might have existed in 1981".[18]
In 2016, Llamasoft announced Polybius for the PlayStation 4 with PlayStation VR support,[19] released on the PlayStation store on Tuesday, May 9, 2017.[20] In early marketing, its co-author Jeff Minter claimed to have been permitted to play the original Polybius arcade machine in a warehouse in Basingstoke, England.[21] He later acknowledged that his game was inspired by the urban legend but does not attempt to reproduce its alleged gameplay.[22] It has a central cameo as the "main attraction" in the Nine Inch Nails music video "Less Than".[23]
Other media
Polybius has cameos in many TV series, such as The Goldbergs (2013) and The Simpsons (2006). The Loki (2021) cameo gained its own acclaim on social media, including that the game seems catastrophically integral to the multiverse, and is a key example of Loki interplaying conspiracy with reality. An IGN alum said "Loki has a Polybius arcade machine and I'm losing my goddamn mind."[4] For Paper Girls (2022), CBR reported that the Polybius cameo conferred the series with 1980s science fiction credentials, and differentiated it from Stranger Things (2016).[24]
The Polybius Conspiracy is a 7-part podcast published in 2017, adapted from a canceled feature film project.[13][25]
See also
List of urban legends
Satanic panic
Toynbee tiles
Polybius (urban legend)
Article
Talk
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An alleged start screen, attached to an article on coinop.org.[1]
Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game from an urban legend.[2] 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. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.
This urban legend has persisted in video game journalism and through continued interest, and it has inspired video games with the same name.
Legend
A mocked-up Polybius cabinet made by Rogue Synapse
The urban legend says that in 1981, when new arcade games were uncommon, an unheard-of new arcade game appeared in several suburbs of Portland, Oregon. The game was popular to the point of addiction,[2] with lines forming around the machines and often resulting in fights over who would play next. The machines were visited by men in black, who collected unknown data from the machines,[2] allegedly testing responses to the game's psychoactive effects. Players supposedly suffered from a series of unpleasant side effects, including seizures, amnesia, insomnia, night terrors, and hallucinations.[3] Approximately one month after its supposed release in 1981, Polybius is said to have disappeared without a trace.[1]
The company named in most accounts of the game is Sinneslöschen. The word is described by writer Brian Dunning as "not-quite-idiomatic German" (a word constructed outside the norms of German-language usage and grammar) meaning "sense delete" or "sensory deprivation". If it was real German vernacular, "Sinneslöschen" would be pronounced [ˈzɪnəslœʃn̩]. Its meanings are derived from the German words Sinne ("senses") and löschen ("to extinguish" or "to delete"), though the way they are combined is not standard German; Sinnlöschen would be more correct.[2]
The game has the same name as the classical Greek historian Polybius, born in Arcadia and known for his assertion that historians should never report what they cannot verify through interviews with eyewitnesses.[4][5]
The first online mention of Polybius is a coinop.org article started in 1998, which extends the legend by claiming possession of a ROM image file from the 1981 arcade machine, claiming to have played it, and on May 16, 2009, promising to bring future updates pending an investigatory flight to Kyiv, Ukraine.[1][4] The first known printed mention of Polybius, exposing the legend to a mass-market audience,[2] is in the September 2003 issue of GamePro. The feature story "Secrets and Lies" declared the game's existence to be "inconclusive",[6] helping to both spark curiosity and spread the story.
Reception
A E-FOIA request for Polybius returned no results.
The alleged original Polybius arcade game is generally believed to have never existed, and the legend a hoax.[2] Snopes.com, a fact-checking website, concludes the game is a modern-day version of 1980s rumors of "men in black". This led to the hypothesis that the government was hosting some sort of experiment and sending subliminal messages to the players.[7][failed verification] Magazines and mainstream news of the early 1980s do not mention Polybius.[8] Aside from the mockup cabinets and games inspired by the myth, no authentic cabinets or ROM dumps have ever been documented.[4]
Skeptics and researchers differ on when, how, and why the story of Polybius began. American producer and author Brian Dunning believes it is an urban legend that grew out of a mixture of influences in the 1980s. He notes real news reports that two players fell ill in Portland on the same day in 1981, one collapsing with a migraine headache after playing Tempest,[2] and another suffering from stomach pain after playing Asteroids for 28 hours in a filmed attempt to break a world record at the same arcade.[9] Dunning records that the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided several video arcades in the area just ten days later, where the owners were suspected of using the machines for gambling, and the lead-up to the raid involved FBI agents monitoring arcade cabinets for evidence of tampering and recording high scores. Dunning suggests that these two events were combined into an urban legend about government-monitored arcade machines making players ill. He believes that such a myth must have been established by 1984, and that it influenced the plot of the film The Last Starfighter, in which a teenager is recruited by aliens who monitor him playing a covertly-developed arcade game. Dunning considers "Sinneslöschen" to be the kind of name that a non-German speaker would generate if they tried to create a compound word using an English-to-German dictionary.[2]
Internet writer Patrick Kellogg believes that players claiming to remember having played or seen Polybius since the 1980s may actually be recalling the video game Cube Quest. It was released in arcades in 1983 as a shooting game played from laserdisc. Kellogg describes its visuals as "revolutionary" and far ahead of typical games of the time. He states that frequent breakdowns are typical of laserdisc games, so this one was often removed from arcades.[10]
Ben Silverman of Yahoo! Games remarked: "Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the game ever existed, no less turned its users into babbling lunatics ... Still, Polybius has enjoyed cult-like status as a throwback to a more technologically paranoid era."[3] Ripley's Believe It or Not! called Polybius "the most dangerous video game to never exist".[11] Offbeat Oregon History says "There remains a possibility-a tiny one, really too small to measure - that the legend is true."[12] Portland Monthly calls it "one of Portland's craziest urban legends", comparing it to the CIA's MKUltra mind control program of the 1950s-1970s.[13]
Legacy
Video games
In 2007, freeware developers and arcade constructors Rogue Synapse published a free downloadable game titled Polybius for Windows at sinnesloschen.com. Its design is partly based on a contested description of the Polybius arcade machine posted on a forum by an individual named Steven Roach who claimed to have worked on the original.[14] To complete the illusion, Rogue Synapse's owner Dr. Estil Vance founded a Texas-based corporation bearing the name Sinnesloschen (without umlaut) in 2007.[15] He transferred to it the "Rogue Synapse" trademark[16] and a newly registered trademark on "Polybius".[17] Its website says that it is an "attempt to recreate the Polybius game as it might have existed in 1981".[18]
In 2016, Llamasoft announced Polybius for the PlayStation 4 with PlayStation VR support,[19] released on the PlayStation store on Tuesday, May 9, 2017.[20] In early marketing, its co-author Jeff Minter claimed to have been permitted to play the original Polybius arcade machine in a warehouse in Basingstoke, England.[21] He later acknowledged that his game was inspired by the urban legend but does not attempt to reproduce its alleged gameplay.[22] It has a central cameo as the "main attraction" in the Nine Inch Nails music video "Less Than".[23]
Other media
Polybius has cameos in many TV series, such as The Goldbergs (2013) and The Simpsons (2006). The Loki (2021) cameo gained its own acclaim on social media, including that the game seems catastrophically integral to the multiverse, and is a key example of Loki interplaying conspiracy with reality. An IGN alum said "Loki has a Polybius arcade machine and I'm losing my goddamn mind."[4] For Paper Girls (2022), CBR reported that the Polybius cameo conferred the series with 1980s science fiction credentials, and differentiated it from Stranger Things (2016).[24]
The Polybius Conspiracy is a 7-part podcast published in 2017, adapted from a canceled feature film project.[13][25]
See also
List of urban legends
Satanic panic
Toynbee tiles
Polybius (urban legend)
Article
Talk
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An alleged start screen, attached to an article on coinop.org.[1]
Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game from an urban legend.[2] 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. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.
This urban legend has persisted in video game journalism and through continued interest, and it has inspired video games with the same name.
Legend
A mocked-up Polybius cabinet made by Rogue Synapse
The urban legend says that in 1981, when new arcade games were uncommon, an unheard-of new arcade game appeared in several suburbs of Portland, Oregon. The game was popular to the point of addiction,[2] with lines forming around the machines and often resulting in fights over who would play next. The machines were visited by men in black, who collected unknown data from the machines,[2] allegedly testing responses to the game's psychoactive effects. Players supposedly suffered from a series of unpleasant side effects, including seizures, amnesia, insomnia, night terrors, and hallucinations.[3] Approximately one month after its supposed release in 1981, Polybius is said to have disappeared without a trace.[1]
The company named in most accounts of the game is Sinneslöschen. The word is described by writer Brian Dunning as "not-quite-idiomatic German" (a word constructed outside the norms of German-language usage and grammar) meaning "sense delete" or "sensory deprivation". If it was real German vernacular, "Sinneslöschen" would be pronounced [ˈzɪnəslœʃn̩]. Its meanings are derived from the German words Sinne ("senses") and löschen ("to extinguish" or "to delete"), though the way they are combined is not standard German; Sinnlöschen would be more correct.[2]
The game has the same name as the classical Greek historian Polybius, born in Arcadia and known for his assertion that historians should never report what they cannot verify through interviews with eyewitnesses.[4][5]
The first online mention of Polybius is a coinop.org article started in 1998, which extends the legend by claiming possession of a ROM image file from the 1981 arcade machine, claiming to have played it, and on May 16, 2009, promising to bring future updates pending an investigatory flight to Kyiv, Ukraine.[1][4] The first known printed mention of Polybius, exposing the legend to a mass-market audience,[2] is in the September 2003 issue of GamePro. The feature story "Secrets and Lies" declared the game's existence to be "inconclusive",[6] helping to both spark curiosity and spread the story.
Reception
A E-FOIA request for Polybius returned no results.
The alleged original Polybius arcade game is generally believed to have never existed, and the legend a hoax.[2] Snopes.com, a fact-checking website, concludes the game is a modern-day version of 1980s rumors of "men in black". This led to the hypothesis that the government was hosting some sort of experiment and sending subliminal messages to the players.[7][failed verification] Magazines and mainstream news of the early 1980s do not mention Polybius.[8] Aside from the mockup cabinets and games inspired by the myth, no authentic cabinets or ROM dumps have ever been documented.[4]
Skeptics and researchers differ on when, how, and why the story of Polybius began. American producer and author Brian Dunning believes it is an urban legend that grew out of a mixture of influences in the 1980s. He notes real news reports that two players fell ill in Portland on the same day in 1981, one collapsing with a migraine headache after playing Tempest,[2] and another suffering from stomach pain after playing Asteroids for 28 hours in a filmed attempt to break a world record at the same arcade.[9] Dunning records that the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided several video arcades in the area just ten days later, where the owners were suspected of using the machines for gambling, and the lead-up to the raid involved FBI agents monitoring arcade cabinets for evidence of tampering and recording high scores. Dunning suggests that these two events were combined into an urban legend about government-monitored arcade machines making players ill. He believes that such a myth must have been established by 1984, and that it influenced the plot of the film The Last Starfighter, in which a teenager is recruited by aliens who monitor him playing a covertly-developed arcade game. Dunning considers "Sinneslöschen" to be the kind of name that a non-German speaker would generate if they tried to create a compound word using an English-to-German dictionary.[2]
Internet writer Patrick Kellogg believes that players claiming to remember having played or seen Polybius since the 1980s may actually be recalling the video game Cube Quest. It was released in arcades in 1983 as a shooting game played from laserdisc. Kellogg describes its visuals as "revolutionary" and far ahead of typical games of the time. He states that frequent breakdowns are typical of laserdisc games, so this one was often removed from arcades.[10]
Ben Silverman of Yahoo! Games remarked: "Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the game ever existed, no less turned its users into babbling lunatics ... Still, Polybius has enjoyed cult-like status as a throwback to a more technologically paranoid era."[3] Ripley's Believe It or Not! called Polybius "the most dangerous video game to never exist".[11] Offbeat Oregon History says "There remains a possibility-a tiny one, really too small to measure - that the legend is true."[12] Portland Monthly calls it "one of Portland's craziest urban legends", comparing it to the CIA's MKUltra mind control program of the 1950s-1970s.[13]
Legacy
Video games
In 2007, freeware developers and arcade constructors Rogue Synapse published a free downloadable game titled Polybius for Windows at sinnesloschen.com. Its design is partly based on a contested description of the Polybius arcade machine posted on a forum by an individual named Steven Roach who claimed to have worked on the original.[14] To complete the illusion, Rogue Synapse's owner Dr. Estil Vance founded a Texas-based corporation bearing the name Sinnesloschen (without umlaut) in 2007.[15] He transferred to it the "Rogue Synapse" trademark[16] and a newly registered trademark on "Polybius".[17] Its website says that it is an "attempt to recreate the Polybius game as it might have existed in 1981".[18]
In 2016, Llamasoft announced Polybius for the PlayStation 4 with PlayStation VR support,[19] released on the PlayStation store on Tuesday, May 9, 2017.[20] In early marketing, its co-author Jeff Minter claimed to have been permitted to play the original Polybius arcade machine in a warehouse in Basingstoke, England.[21] He later acknowledged that his game was inspired by the urban legend but does not attempt to reproduce its alleged gameplay.[22] It has a central cameo as the "main attraction" in the Nine Inch Nails music video "Less Than".[23]
Other media
Polybius has cameos in many TV series, such as The Goldbergs (2013) and The Simpsons (2006). The Loki (2021) cameo gained its own acclaim on social media, including that the game seems catastrophically integral to the multiverse, and is a key example of Loki interplaying conspiracy with reality. An IGN alum said "Loki has a Polybius arcade machine and I'm losing my goddamn mind."[4] For Paper Girls (2022), CBR reported that the Polybius cameo conferred the series with 1980s science fiction credentials, and differentiated it from Stranger Things (2016).[24]
The Polybius Conspiracy is a 7-part podcast published in 2017, adapted from a canceled feature film project.[13][25]
See also
List of urban legends
Satanic panic
Toynbee tiles
Polybius (urban legend)
Article
Talk
Read
Edit
View history
Tools
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An alleged start screen, attached to an article on coinop.org.[1]
Polybius is a fictitious 1981 arcade game from an urban legend.[2] 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. Supposedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines then disappeared from the arcade market.
This urban legend has persisted in video game journalism and through continued interest, and it has inspired video games with the same name.
Legend
A mocked-up Polybius cabinet made by Rogue Synapse
The urban legend says that in 1981, when new arcade games were uncommon, an unheard-of new arcade game appeared in several suburbs of Portland, Oregon. The game was popular to the point of addiction,[2] with lines forming around the machines and often resulting in fights over who would play next. The machines were visited by men in black, who collected unknown data from the machines,[2] allegedly testing responses to the game's psychoactive effects. Players supposedly suffered from a series of unpleasant side effects, including seizures, amnesia, insomnia, night terrors, and hallucinations.[3] Approximately one month after its supposed release in 1981, Polybius is said to have disappeared without a trace.[1]
