First Case

Polybius was an addictive game to play. According to Anthony Dennis in his article, “Killer in the Arcade: The Legend of Polybius”, “The arcade game was so addictive to young players that they would play for hours upon end and feud violently just to get the next turn.” Dennis also adds in his article that “This was a time in which it was believed that video games were dangerously addictive to minors, and so there was a consideration of the United States Supreme Court to impose an age restriction of 17 years and above for players or patrons of arcades and their games. The test proved that there were no grounds for such a restriction.” Not only Polybius, but many other arcade games were being considered addictive to children around the United States. Kids were becoming violent to get the opportunity to play one round of this strange, new game. (Dennis) This was such a negative connotation in the minds of those parents that the government even considered restricting the age of players that can play in arcades. Even now, without the popularity of arcade games but video games still being around, there hasn’t been a thought about restricting the age to play the games. Now, we have ratings that limit age for the purchase of certain games, but never a full age restriction of who can play. In the first case, the belief that Polybius wasn’t real at all has multiple different sources to support it. In Van Buren’s article “Polybius: The Most Dangerous Arcade Game in the World”, she briefly discusses the different player accounts and responses to the arcade game. “We started shooting little interviews and organically they transformed into a documentary,” says Luoto, “At that point, we sort of thought truth was stranger than fiction. We interviewed everyone, from regulars at Ground Kontrol to video game designers to arcade owners to journalists that had grown up in the Portland area.” (Van Buren) This theory doesn’t exactly work though, because the accounts that are given are very hard to find and even prove as true. It does help go furthermore into the other theory though that it’s an extension of MK-Ultra. The accounts discussed in the article talk about the feelings of illness from playing the game, and even an abduction of one of the child players that ended up “ruining his life”. (Van Buren) In all honesty, this theory is quite hard to prove just for the reason that there's hardly any evidence out there.The strange, misconstrued player accounts just give more benefit to the other theory because you can dismiss them as either lies or drug induced hallucinations.