Introduction

      The 1980s: the prime time of arcade video games, but what no one expected was one of these video games leading to the kidnapping of a fourteen-year-old boy. Polybius was an irregular arcade video game that randomly popped up around Portland, Oregon, with no name, nor trace of where it might have come from. Those who played it have been reported to experience “nausea, seizures, and even insanity”. (Meade) The most controversial victim of Polybius was the case of fourteen-year-old Bobby Feldstein, who went missing after playing the game. As reported, Feldstein was “found the next day more than sixty miles from his own house”. (Burren) This has led to a couple of conspiracy theories:

 1. Was Polybius a government experiment that Feldstein was able to escape?

 2. Was Polybius even a game at all? 

Let us look at the case of Polybius and the conspiracies surrounding it and Bobby Feldstein. The likely answer is that the game never existed.