The whole Polybius thing is my favourite conspiracy theory because nearly every individual element of the story is absolutely true, but not for that reason.
Did some early arcade games cause people to suffer hallucinations, memory loss, and short-term personality changes? Yes, they did – because many folks who played them were experiencing close range exposure to bright, rapidly flashing lights for the first time in their lives, and – at the time – public awareness of photosensitive epilepsy was practically nonexistent. Most who had it were undiagnosed, and its symptoms often weren’t recognised when they arose – and if you have no idea what photosensitive epilepsy is, those symptoms might look a lot like alien mind control!
Were early video arcades frequented by serious-looking men in dark suits? Again, yes they were – because they were suspected of being money-laundering fronts for illegal gambling rings, and thus were routinely placed under federal surveillance. And those suspicions weren’t unfounded – it later transpired that many early video arcades were, in fact, money-laundering fronts for illegal gambling rings.
Did arcade cabinets with strange titles and indecipherable gameplay quietly pop up in out-of-the-way places, then vanish shortly thereafter, never to be seen again? Absolutely – because a thriving black market in off-brand bootlegs arose almost immediately. Quality control was nonexistent, so many such cabinets had operational lifespans measured in weeks, and you’d most often see them in arcades with poor locations simply because they were cheap.
It was a perfect storm of largely unrelated factors that added up to the convincing appearance of a shadowy conspiracy, even though each element by itself had a fairly boring explanation.
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