Eagle-eyed urban legend fans might have spotted an old friend in Marvel’s Loki:
Yes, a sinister black arcade cabinet labeled POLYBIUS. You might have seen this before, in The Simpsons
or in this Nine Inch Nails music video. These are referencing one of the
most enduring video game urban legends, one that pre-dates Ben Drowns or Lavender Town.
As the story goes, Polybius was a cursed arcade machine created by the government to test out
mind-control technology on kids. Anybody who played it got addicted, and if you played for too
long, you’d suffer from amnesia, nausea, hallucinations, seizures, and even… death.
But did it ever really exist? No. If it did, I would have said “the
original cursed arcade machine that totally exists” and not “urban legend.” You know I would.
I wouldn’t play you like that. This is one of those stories that is widely spread, but not widely
believed. It’s just kind of fun to lean into! But there is some real, fascinating history
backing it up – and most of it has to do with what a sketchy company Atari was.
The game is said to have originated in Portland, Oregon in 1981. The earliest artifact is a post
on CoinOp.org from the late 90s or early 2000s, which is around the time a young
urban-legend-obsessed nerd in Southern Illinois first heard about it. And that nerd? (laughs) Well her name
was Jenna Stoeber.
(chokes, laughs)
(COUGHS EMPHATICALLY)
Alright, perfect take, we got it.
The CoinOp.org post was updated sometime afterwards to include a title card. It’s
a screenshot, so it had to have come from a ROM – one that the post says totally exists, like, for real guys.
But if it did, there would certainly be ROM files, more screenshots, some Let’s Play videos.
Unless everybody who recorded Let’s Plays got amnesia. I hadn’t really considered that.
The card marks the copyright as 1981, held by a company called Sinneslöschen. Rumor held
that Sinneslöschen was a subsidiary of Atari, contracted by the government to create games
for nefarious purposes. This is my favorite part of the Polybius legend because it’s the
most accurate in the weirdest way possible. I mean about the, Sinneslöschen, the company —
— there’s just no evidence it ever existed. But Atari did have a secret subsidiary,
One that they created for the sinister purpose of… selling knock-off Atari games. Back in the 70s,
Atari had exclusivity contracts with certain arcades that prevented them from selling their
machines to other businesses. So if you wanted to play Atari, you had to dunk
your milk money at specific spots. But demand far exceeded the bounds of that
contract. So Nolan Bushnell created a subsidiary called Kee Games to sell slightly off versions
of Atari’s own works, circumventing the agreement. The company was later “acquired”
by Atari, after the scheme was exposed. Kee Games did also make original games – one of them,
Tank, was so popular that it kept Atari afloat through some financial troubles. That's like if
your clone was better at saving for retirement than you, so you just reabsorb them.
While Sinneslöschen didn’t have any government contracts, because it didn’t exist, Atari did.
Have government contracts. And exist.
After the release of Battlezone in 1981, Atari was contracted by the military to make
a training simulator for the Bradley fighting vehicle. According to an ABC news report,
the government wanted to study if soldiers would play it voluntarily, and if it really
would improve their combat capabilities. - ABC news anchor: And there’s even talk of using
electronic games as a recruiting gimmick.
(LAUGHS UNCOMFORTABLY)
The Bradley Trainer, as it was called, didn’t seem to take off,
Atari only produced two cabinets. One has sort of circulated
amongst rare-arcade collectors. The other was reportedly delivered to
Fort Eustice in Virginia, although reports are split on whether it was ever actually used.
The yoke that Atari adapted for the machine was later further adapted for other Atari games.
Despite the fact that only two cabinets were made, there is a wealth of artifacts that prove
The Bradley Trainer existed. There is even a ROM, which means YouTube does have let’s plays of it,
although none of them seem to end tragically. One theory is that Polybius is a prototype of
Tempest, a hugely popular vector arcade game released by Atari in 1981. And in fact, prototypes of Tempest
do exist, and one of them DID make players sick! Davdi Theurer, the developer,
has described a version where the landscape itself moves; the player would spin a knob to rotate the
tunnel while the spaceship stayed still. - David Theurer: And it was making people
nauseous, uh, which is not a good thing. - But it’s unlikely that the motion-sickness
version of Tempest ever escaped the Atari workshop. One prototype, Vortex,
got a full cabinet build – but we have a rom of that one too, and it’s clearly not a version that
would make you chuck your lunchables. I mean, it looks a lot like the regular Tempest, so, like, what's the deal.
As far as harmful arcade incidents go,
there are fewer than you might expect. There's one specific incident is generally considered
the origin event for the Polybius legend. In November 1981, a 12-year-old in Portland tried
to beat the record for the longest single game of Asteroids, which is, as expected,
an Atari game. His attempt was cut short after 28 hours and 14 minutes... due to a tum-tum ache.
Listening to this history, you might think Atari was the only company out there making
coin-op games. But actually 1981 was the industry’s heyday. Revenue for arcades was in the billions, it was more
money than was spent on movie tickets.
And it was way heavier too, 'cause it was all in QUARTERS.
So was Atari cursed, a harbinger of bad omens and upset tummies?
No. Curses don’t exist. Atari’s games were just really popular,
and urban legends feed on the biggest elements in pop culture because that’s where the most
meat is. It’s why Pokemon has lots of urban legends and Fighting Foodons... does not.
Anyway, everybody knows that Polybius isn’t real. What we actually need to be worried about
is this Minecraft mod where if you play it while streaming it turns all your viewers into zombies.
My aunt works at Twitch and she told me that’s why Ninja started streaming on Mixer.
[spooooooooky techno music]
If you want to read more about Polybius, I highly recommend historian Cat DeSpira’s
exhaustive work researching it.
We'll put a link in the description so you can check it out!