7. Polybius
While some gaming myths concern themselves with hidden levels, unlockable characters and secret objects, Polybius takes things one step further because the game itself is a myth. The story of Polybius is like something from the X-Files, but before it got rubbish. According to the urban legend, Polybius was an arcade game released in 1981 that styled itself on vector shoot-em-up Tempest. The game apparently drove people to insanity, giving them intense nightmares and driving them to suicide. But it was incredibly addictive, forming huge lines of people that occasionally erupted into violence due to impatience. These incidents followed visits from the men in black, who took down the names of high scorers. Not long after its release Polybius vanished. The thing is, Polybius never actually existed. Rather, it was likely a rumour cooked up in the early days of the internet and acted as a modern re-telling of the men in black stories.