![]() ![]() The name comes from the ancient Greek historian and cryptographer Polybius, who emphasized the importance of quoting eye witnesses for noteworthy events. The idea that video games have been used to militarize youth has been the subject of books, comics, movies, and episodes of The Simpsons. The suggestion that Polybius tested mental and physical agility, and was being used as a recruitment tool for the military is almost canon now. “They’re not interested in quarters or anything, they just collected information about how the game was played.” “According to an operator who ran an arcade with one of these games, guys in black coats would come to collect ‘records’ from the machines,” the posting reads. There are indications someone was monitoring the players. But the plot of the listing twists further. The listing says Polybius was manufactured by a company called Sinneslöschen, which means delete, or more vaguely, sensory deprivation. Much of the secret project’s research was done under the supervision of Nazi scientists who had been brought into the country under Operation Paperclip. ![]() MK is said to stand for Mind Control, although conspiracy theorists suggest it can stand for Mein Kampf. “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,” the CoinOp listing reads. Some conspiracy theorists posit Polybius was a brainwashing device designed by the agency, a concern raised in the original post. 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.”Īdmittedly, this happened in the ‘80s, when an actor played a president while the vice president was a former CIA director. According to the post, the “game had a very limited release, one or two backwater arcades in a suburb of Portland. 6, 2000, listing in the digital arcade gaming database. The earliest written account of the game is an archived Usenet post from 1994, according to PCGames. The most extreme hazard of playing Polybius was to swear off video games forever. Some had auditory hallucinations, while others saw faces out of the corners of their eyes. Players reputedly complained about nausea, headaches, blackouts, amnesia, night terrors, seizures, and even brain aneurysms. The legend says it was tested on civilian youth at the Malibu Grand Prix arcade in Oregon between 19. According to urban legend, Polybius, an arcade game, was specifically designed to encroach on the players’ psyche. In the 1980s, kids had to go to video arcades to pump quarters into machines which mined their minds. Today, the American Psychiatric Association is studying “Internet Gaming Disorder” to determine whether it can be classified for potential diagnosis in an age of easy technological access. But the presence of Polybius is something a little more mischievous, a little more deceptive, and thus a little more perfect for this show.īefore Qanon, Slenderman, and deep-fake news confusions evoked international viral fears, concerned citizens worried about the brain-flaying properties of video games. Loki could have just as easily gone for a Crystal Castles or Mad Crasher or Zaxxon cabinet if all they wanted was some fun and anachronistic set dressing. Why shouldn’t they? If you could get a bottle of Josta and all it’s going to take is a jaunt back to 1997, why not, right?īut Polybius takes things a little further. The show has hidden little jokes all around the TVA offices indicating that representatives of the time-and-space-spanning organization like to drink and snack on long defunct brands. It’s not exactly out of place on a show that relishes in jumping around the timestream and into and out of troublesome branch realities. Visible in the secret hideout of the Variant Lokis, nestled between some old pinball machines and stacks of ephemera, is an arcade cabinet bearing the name: Polybius. Marvel’s Loki episode 5 has a really unique Easter egg showcasing a video game that barely even existed, yet whose reputation has grown thanks to the power of urban legend. ![]() This article contains Loki episode 5 spoilers. ![]()
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