Polybius

[Puppetmaster]

What is Polybius? All I know is that it was released in a few arcades in maine. I cant find any info on it on any coin-op sited or anything.

[davepesc]

It's generally considered an urban legend.

Supposedly, the game was a government experiment in mind control through visual images. People who played the game would supposedly black out and/or develop a strong aversion to video games. According to the legend, a guy came to collect data from inside the machine, but necer took any of the coins.

 

I think there may be more on www.snopes.com.

[Puppetmaster]

Wow. Thats asinine. why did I take the time to ask?

[davepesc]

From snopes.com:

 

Polybius

This game had a very limited release, one or two backwater arcades in a suburb of Portland. The history of this game is cloudy, there were all kinds of strange stories about how kids who played it got amnesia afterwards, couldn't remember their name or where they lived, etc. The bizarre rumors about this game are that it was supposedly developed by some kind of weird military tech offshoot group, used some kind of proprietary behavior modification algorithms developed for the CIA or something, kids who played it woke up at night screaming, having horrible nightmares.

 

http://coinop.org/g.aspx/103223/Polybius.html

No arcade game called Polybius induced amnesia, caused gamers to wake up screaming in the middle of the night, or attracted the attention of mysterious "men in black" who periodically came to "collect records" from Portland-area machines. This one is just a gag someone invented several years ago which has now become enshrined on the web, another version of the conspiracy rumors involving military intelligence agents visiting arcades to collect stored information from game consoles which date to at least the early 1980s. (Back then we were supposed to watch out for men in black who came around to take down the initials of high scorers at Space Invaders, Asteroids, and Defender.)

Last updated: 9 October 2003

[Dr Galaga]

[Zonie]

From snopes.com:

 

Polybius

This game had a very limited release, one or two backwater arcades in a suburb of Portland.  <SNIP>

840860[/snapback]

 

 

I lived in Portland Maine for two years...It's ALL BACKWATER (Or should I say "Backwatah"

 

Interesting place to try someting like that...Nobody'd ever notice!!!!

[+batari]

What is Polybius? All I know is that it was released in a few arcades in maine. I cant find any info on it on any coin-op sited or anything.

840603[/snapback]

I'm not sure where you got "Maine" from "Portland Suburb." Let me set the record straight. "Portland" with no reference means Portland, OREGON, not Maine.

 

Furthermore, Suburb means Suburban, so there is the assumption that this is outside an urban area. But Portland, Maine has population of only 64,000 - hardly an urban area.

 

By contrast, Portland, Oregon has a population of 529,000, over eight times the population. The greater Portland area has a population of about two million.

 

In fact, the urban legend usually references Beaverton, a suburb of Portland, Oregon, which itself has a population of 76,000 - yes, a single Portland suburb is bigger than Portland, Maine itself.

 

Regarding Polybius, as I understand, someone on the Usenet made it up several years ago as a joke.

[Puppetmaster]

Oh, sorry. The only Portland ive ever heard of is in Maine. The government hides everything else from us, why not this?

[Zonie]

What is Polybius? All I know is that it was released in a few arcades in maine. I cant find any info on it on any coin-op sited or anything.

840603[/snapback]

I'm not sure where you got "Maine" from "Portland Suburb." Let me set the record straight. "Portland" with no reference means Portland, OREGON, not Maine.

 

Furthermore, Suburb means Suburban, so there is the assumption that this is outside an urban area. But Portland, Maine has population of only 64,000 - hardly an urban area.

 

By contrast, Portland, Oregon has a population of 529,000, over eight times the population. The greater Portland area has a population of about two million.

 

In fact, the urban legend usually references Beaverton, a suburb of Portland, Oregon, which itself has a population of 76,000 - yes, a single Portland suburb is bigger than Portland, Maine itself.

 

Regarding Polybius, as I understand, someone on the Usenet made it up several years ago as a joke.

840969[/snapback]

 

 

That's funny, because I remember hearing this story years ago but always thought it was Oregon. When I saw "Maine" in Puppetmaster's post, My mind just sort of locked on to that since I lived in the godforsaken place and it sort of fit, since it's such an out of the way place for the most part and you wouldn't notice a polybuis affected person among the general downtown population.

 

The Portland (ME) metro (if you could call it that) area includes many suburbs that make it about pop 125,000 IIRC. Portland, ME does have an urban center. Kinda gritty one too. It even has some "Skyscrapers" that are a whole 12 floors high, and a <ghasp> million dollar bridge. Don't get me wrong, Maine is a beautiful place, just a hard place to make a good living and tolerate if you are used to living in the western U.S. most of your life.

 

On another note, My best thrift finds were just this month in Beaverton, OR, of all places!!! Gotta love that "Goodwill outlet store" ..which is in...umm... Aloha. (pronounced: a-low-uh). Just quoted another Job there so I plan to bring a bigger suitcase this time.

Edited April 26, 2005 by Zonie