Is there any truth to the myth of Polybius?

There is an old urban legend about an arcade game Polybius.

An arcade machine that would have been made to be a government experiment, appeared just for a few days in a few arcades, and then some men in black took it away, never to be seen again.

So is there a nugget of truth to this myth? Did the game ever exist? Or was it all created from nothing just to be a creepypasta?


The game never existed. Both Wikipedia and Snopes state this definitively.

One theory for the creation of this urban legend is that is was started by Kurt Koller in an effort to get more visitors to his site dedicated to arcade gaming.