July 22, 2021

TFD:SB - EP6 | The Polybius Arcade Theory | The Men in Black & Addictive Video Game Experiments

34 minutes

Welcome back to TFD Summer Break! In today's episode, we welcome Christian back in Studio to share the story of Polybius, an alleged arcade game placed in Portland back in the 80's. Hailed as the first "internet urban legend" by skeptics everywhere, the legend describes the game as part of a government-run crowdsourced psychology experiment based in Portland, Oregon during 1981.

Gameplay supposedly produced intense psychoactive and addictive effects in the player. These few publicly staged arcade machines were said to have been visited periodically by men in black for the purpose of data-mining the machines and analyzing these effects. Allegedly, all of these Polybius arcade machines disappeared from the arcade market. Polybius has persisted as a topic of interest for video games journalism and through continued interest, it has served as inspiration for free and commercial video games by the same name.

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If you're new to the show, welcome to TFD Summer Break! Season 1 has ended, and while the gang recharges their batteries, and gears up for Season 2 of The Freaky Deaky later this Fall, we'll be releasing shorter weekly episodes across all your favorite pod catchers. It's gonna be a good time. Special Guests, Guest Hosts, Heather will debut some True Crime, and we'll also be uploading video shorts, and behind the scenes footage on our YouTube Channel & TikTok Page, so make sure you're following along across our social media pages!

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