Polybius (Video Game Documentary)

Polybius is a story about a video game that allegedly existed in the Portland, Oregon area around 1981. Supposedly the game caused horrible psychological effects and was part of a top secret government research project.

In order to believe Polybius was a government experiment in my opinion one has to ignore the overwhelming evidence the Polybius game never existed as the stories report. This seems ironic because most likely the Polybius game was named after a Greek historian who advocated for factual reporting. As Wikipedia states,

"In the seventh volume of his Histories, Polybius defines the historian's job as the analysis of documentation, the review of relevant geographical information, and political experience. Polybius held that historians should only chronicle events whose participants the historian was able to interview, and was among the first to champion the notion of factual integrity in historical writing..."
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polybius#Sources

I think it is pretty obvious that Polybius is an urban legend. This documentary below makes the case better than I ever could by myself. I think the two strongest points that this documentary about Polybius brings up is:

  1. The lack of primary evidence before the year 2000.
  2. The font from the alleged Polybius screen is not contemporary with any other video games in 1981.