10 Most Ludicrous Video Game Urban Myths You Actually Believed

3. Government Conspiracy - Polybius

We’ve really escalated things on our list of urban myths from theories and legends straight up to full on government conspiracies.

Such is the case for the arcade shooter Polybius. Released in limited capacity to certain arcades around suburban Portland, Oregon in the early 80s, this one gets weird fast.

The story goes that players who tried their hand at the game would begin to suffer panic attacks, amnesia, nightmares, and suicidal tendencies. Stranger still, it was said that the extreme strobing effect in the game was being used by The Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency to test responses to psychoactive machines. Creepy. Apparently men in black would also come through and collect the info stored on the game’s memory.

Of course, to say none of this is confirmed is an understatement and no one is entirely sure whether the game even existed at all.