Talk:Polybius (urban legend)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. You can locate your hook here.No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by TarnishedPath talk 07:10, 22 September 2025 (UTC)

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• ... that the urban legend Polybius shares its name with a historian who warned against reporting stories that cannot be verified?

• Source: Bankhurst, Adam (July 9, 2021). "Loki: The Strange Gaming Myth Behind That Polybius Machine in Episode 5". IGN. Retrieved January 2, 2023. Polybius was also the name of a Greek historian of the Hellenistic period who, among other things, held that historians should only chronicle events if they have spoken to those who were actually part of said event.
  And:
  Farrington, Scott Thomas (February 2015). "A Likely Story: Rhetoric and the Determination of Truth in Polybius' Histories". Histos. 9 (29–66): 40. doi:10.29173/histos284. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 22, 2020. Retrieved August 23, 2023. Polybius begins his history proper with the 140th Olympiad because accounts of the remote past amount to hearsay and do not allow for safe judgements (διαλήψεις) and assertions (ἀποφάσεις) regarding the course of events.... he can relate events he saw himself, or he can use the testimony of eyewitnesses. ([footnote 34:] Pol. 4.2.2: ἐξ οὗ συµβαίνει τοῖς µὲν αὐτοὺς ἡµᾶς παραγεγονέναι, τὰ δὲ παρὰ τῶν ἑωρακότων ἀκηκοέναι.)

• • ALT1: ... that although there is no evidence the arcade game Polybius ever existed, Rogue Synapse released a free version in 2007? Source: Houlihan, Ryan (31 October 2020). "'Polybius' is Real". Inverse. None of those games are the true Polybius which, if it ever existed at all, only survives via word-of-mouth and articles like the one you're reading. Polybius was almost certainly invented by Kurt Koller to promote his website — which obviously succeeded beyond any reasonable expectation. [...] To actually play Polybius, you'll have to settle for one of many fan games developed in tribute to the legend. [...] Freeware developers Rogue Synapse, known for creating fan-made cabinets of arcade games which never existed, like the one from The Last Starfighter, developed and distributed a game named Polybius in 2007.
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Sibylla of Cyprus
  • Comment: This recently passed a GA review, but afterwards there was a discussion about the length of the lead at Talk:Polybius (urban legend)#Lengthy lead before table of contents. By the time this is reviewed, the lead may be more condensed and should be double-checked in the DYK review. I obviously expect it to be excellent, but don't want anybody to assume it had already been checked.
    Also, this article has been around for a while, so if any contributors read this and would like to add a proposed hook to this DYK nomination, feel free to add them below.

Improved to Good Article status by Rjjiii (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 13 past nominations.

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Excellent article and hooks. ALT0 preferred in my opinion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:09, 30 August 2025 (UTC)

Sourcing of FBI Arcade Raid Missing

While the early paragraphs discuss FBI raids of arcades in Portland as a potential inspiration to Polybius, it does not site any sources regarding the existence of these raids. Searching around on the internet for any FBI-related Arcade activities generally leads back to this exact Wikipedia page. Is there any evidence for the existence of these events that would corroborate them as a potential inspiration? ~2026-36181-00 (talk) 13:50, 22 June 2026 (UTC)

→ Polybius (urban legend) § Themes

Also, let me know if what you are looking for are the contemporary newspaper sources. They aren't necessary for the article, but I can clip one or two from the archives and add them if it helps others track the info down. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 01:32, 23 June 2026 (UTC)

I would appreciate that! I think I've seen a few in my own search, some paywalled and some not, and I imagine this could be useful for others that feel the need to cite it as such. Thank you very much. Rainy Days Fire (talk) 11:32, 9 July 2026 (UTC)

@Rainy Days Fire & @~2026-36181-00:

Regarding the secondary sources:

• Streckert (2022) writes: "We don’t know why Windler chose Portland as the home for his story of a brain- melting video game, but like all good myths the tale of Polybius successfully gave form and shape to anxieties about arcades in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1981, for instance, Portland police made fifty-two arrests at video arcades and in 1982 the FBI arrested twenty-five suspects at a Portland-area Games People Play, an arcade chain, for attempting to sell stolen goods."
• Hart (2022) writes: "Some parts of the tale do actually have elements of truth to them, however: a rare German arcade game called Poly-Play existed for a short time and was removed from circulation, some teenagers in Portland were reported to have become ill while playing arcade games such as Asteroids and Tempest in 1981 and the FBI conducted raids on a Portland arcade after it was found that the owner had been rigging the video games to be gambling devices. However, there is no evidence that a game called Polybius ever existed.
• Dunning (2016) writes: "Not only that, but there were, in fact, government agents poking around Portland area video arcades at that very same time. Just ten days after Mauro and Lopez crashed, state, local, and federal agents raided video arcades throughout the region. It turned out that some arcade operators illegally used their video games for gambling, by modifying them with counters that allowed owners to pay out cash to players based on how many points they made in their game, and thus increasing business. In preparation for this raid, FBI agents had been going around to arcades and taking photographs of player initials on high-score screens, hoping to identify potential witnesses. And officers had gone into every business in the city that had video games, and poked and prodded around the back of the machine, looking for these illegal counters.
  
  Arcades had also become a popular place for the sale of stolen goods and drugs, and as a hangout for truants. In fact authorities even set up at least one fake arcade in Portland and filled the game consoles with hidden cameras, similar to today's automated teller machines, hoping to catch criminals in the act."

This blogpost from journalist Cat Despira also gives a solid overview: https://retro-bitch.com/2015/10/29/reinvestigating-polybius-with-2015-update/ And she apparently interviewed Lopez (the migraine blackout kid) as an adult about how rumors spread among his peers and classmates.

I've added a clipping of this source for the 25 arrests:

• "Arcade Sting Stamps Felons". The Oregonian. Portland, Oregon. Associated Press. 6 October 1982. [...] transactions were recorded by hidden cameras.

The newspaper stories don't go into as much detail on this aspect, but the Tempest connection here seems to be that the cabinet's construction made it easier to hide a video camera inside of it.

When it comes to the illegal gambling and modifications, it's more complicated but I've added some examples. Sources mention and sometimes conflate:

• Video game versions of gambling card games that were made as gambling machines.
• Video game versions of gambling card games that were made as video games sometimes with "for amusement only" labels. These were then modified so that "free games" equal to a quarter or however much, could be exchanged for their value. In one case, Donald Anderson was convicted of having rigged some triple-digit number of games with modified garage door openers. You could play a card video game or pinball game and rack up the free games, when you went to cash out, the operator would reset the free games on a machine to zero and give you the value in quarters. This seems to be one of the things that the FBI was investigating from 1980 to early 1982 in Portland.
• Some establishments, going back to the pinball era, would allow you to take a cash prize for a high score (which might tie to the idea of people writing down the names in high score tables).
• A market developed quickly for bootleg and counterfeit machines. These led to the development of video slot machines (using Space Invaders or Pac-Man graphics) that with a switch, could be flipped to play Space Invaders or Pac-Man.

By the late 80s, a growing black/grey market, apparently led to the legalization and regulation of stuff like video poker. From a modern perspective, it feels a bit odd that so much of gambling was illegal back then. Bally, who was frequently investigated, due to alleged ties to organized crime did several gambling-themed games that make solid platforms for conversion to actual gambling on the free-game system like Bally Black Jack. Game-A-Tron, which did have a small actual arcade hit in Space Zap (the inspiration for Cosmic Ark and Outpost, is called out in many early-80s papers for shifting over to making what seem to be intended as gambling platforms like Face Up 21.

In the process of researching this, I came across a bunch of articles that give more insight into the climate at the time but are out of scope for the Polybius article:

• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-berkshire-eagle-robbery-theft-crim/201337271/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-berkshire-eagle-clubs-support-gambli/201416441/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-item-towns-cities-arent-winn/201414107/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-houston-chronicle-video-games-reap-b/201416766/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/dayton-daily-news-video-ventures-vast/201416861/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-charlotte-observer-legality-of-elect/201417764/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/fort-worth-star-telegram-reagan-to-decid/201417836/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-berkshire-eagle-video-game-craze-att/201412185/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/corvallis-gazette-times-ills-tied-to-vid/201410127/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-register-guard-high-court-sidesteps/201338185/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-astorian-cities-limit-video-ga/201338132/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-register-guard-restrictions-on-video/201338085/
• https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-oregonian-controversial-video-arcade/201336880/

Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 19:18, 11 July 2026 (UTC)

I have found the origin of the game Polybus

Polybius appears to be a joking entry using the plot of Clive Gifford’s 1996 Usborne Spinechillers novel Mastermind. Mastermind is an all-black unmarked and very sophisticated virtual reality arcade game that was created by a man scientist who runs an arcade called The Zone. The game has a single black joystick and no serial number. The arcade owner hires two teenage techs to record notes on what happens to people who play the game. The game temporarily wipes their memories and puts them into the game. Players are disoriented. They have heightened aggression and nightmares. They become addicted to the games. This novel was based on an idea by Tony Allen. I believe it may have been retired from many libraries after Columbine (1999). It seems to be influenced by stories about the cursed Tempest game in Oregon, and it is unusually violent for this book series, which is a mid-grade reader. ~2026-37517-26 (talk) 01:17, 12 July 2026 (UTC)

Armstrong book

@ReaderofthePack: NBOOK is about whether a book needs a standalone article. For covering the book in this article about the Polybius urban legend, the more relevant policy is WP:PROPORTION (part of NPOV), which says that aspects of a topic should be covered in proportion to the coverage in reliable sources. Coverage here shouldn't require many sources about the book itself, just reliable sources about the urban legend that discuss the book to an extent that supports the amount of coverage it receives here. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 01:42, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I'm aware. I was using the page to compile sources to see if the book could warrant anything beyond a brief mention in this article (ie, an article on its own). If it did, I would use the sourcing to create said article. Technically the book does pass NBOOK at this point in time, but I wanted to see if I could find a couple more sources to really push it into more firm notability territory. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:19, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. I misunderstood. Good luck tracking down sources then. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 17:58, 7 August 2026 (UTC)