To kids nowadays it's not so much unbelievable that arcade games could be life or death as it is confusing that arcades ever existed. Exist they did, though, and during the 1980s - at the height of the coin-op boom, before home consoles took over - an urban legend spread that one game was even more addictive than Pac Man, Space Invaders and Galaxian put together. Why did people have to be torn away from Polybius? Because it was brainwashing people! Actually, the story didn't start in the 80s. It first cropped up on an arcade gaming site in 1998 and went in-depth about how Polybius cabinets had sprung up, unannounced, in arcades throughout Portland. When somebody was driven completely mad by the game, mysterious Men in Black word turn up to spirit them away. Those same Men in Black were supposedly government workers who were doing market research of a different kind to most: they wanted to know how easy mind-control was. I mean, obviously this one's nonsense, but it's interesting as being possibly the first example of a Creepypasta, urban legends and ghost stories which are created and spread online. The waters have been muddied by people coding their own versions of the game, "re-creating" Polybius cabinets and the fact that the theory might have roots in the hyperbolic reports of any early version of Tempest which supposedly gave people epilepsy, vertigo and/or motion sickness. Which was more down to it being crappily made than anything dodgy. Or is that what they want us to think?
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
