A teenager in Taiwan has been found dead in an internet cafe after reportedly playing a video game for 40 hours without a break. The 18-year-old lad is believed to have collapsed during a marathon session of Diablo 3, an action role-playing video game which features elements of the hack and slash, and dungeon crawl genres.

He was found by workers in the internet cafe in Tainan city, The Sun reported.

On July 15, an attendant entered the room in the morning and found Chuang resting on a table. After the attendant woke him, he stood up, took a few steps and then collapsed, reports said.

He was declared dead shortly after being taken to a local hospital.

It is believed the boy had not eaten for two days and has so far only been identified by his surname Chuang.

Police were investigating the incident.

It has been speculated that sitting for long hours in a sedentary position created cardiovascular problems for Chuang, the daily reported.

The teen had been playing the latest instalment of the role-playing game.

Earlier, in February, a man in New Taipei city was found dead, slumped in a chair facing a computer with his arms still reaching out for the keyboard after playing for 23 hours. The cause of death was reported as cardiac arrest.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news...91865.aspx

Very common in asian countries for some reason

I admire their bladder capacity...
Alison

I would imagine that deep vein thrombosis would be a likely cause of death for someone sitting in one position for so long. Once a clot from DVT hits the heart or lungs it's game over.

Or lack of water intake combined with whatever drug they were on.

Lack of food and drink sure, but you'd be surprised - in most of these cases the only drug is the game itself (let's be honest - some RPGs are basically drugs).

This is going to give that Fat Troll known as "Rush Limbaugh" something to rant about :-/

Stimulants interfere with your body's signals regarding hunger and thirst.  They also speed up excretion.  Even the legal ones are dangerous.  I'd like to know what they test for when these kids go in.

Just for that, I am going to go slaughter a bunch of goblins and then not die.

I agree.

The American Society of Addiction medicine recently has added non-substance abuse behaviors as providing a similar effect of actual drugs on the mind as well as potential structural changes in the brain similar to what is seen in substance addicts.

Just a different method of stimulating neurochemicals to excess, to derive the same feeling of satiety, seen in substance abuse. Of course not everyone is subject to addiction, but video games and pornography are proving as a powerful potential avenue of addiction for some through recent research.

Video gaming interest and the technological advancements of countries seem to be strongly associated, particularly in some Asian countries.

This isn't the first time a death has been reported from extreme video gaming, as well as extreme blogging.

That's true, if it was just sitting that caused it, we'd be seeing a huge rate of death amongst wheelchair-bound people.  Since we don't, then it's got to be something else than the deep-vein thrombosis theory.  RPGs do have measureable physical effects on the heart and blood pressure, for a start.
Alison

Oh geez.  Poor kid   

I'm going to clone myself and make them carry sandwiches to crazy gamers in internet cafes.  Seriously, that just shouldn't happen.  Where are the mommies?!

Isn't there a proposal to add something about video game addiction to the DSM?  It really is addicting, it would be interesting to read the research behind it.  I had a boyfriend who ended up dropping out of college because he couldn't keep his grades up.  Most people drink or do drugs, he just couldn't pull himself away from his computer games.

Not all games are so dangerously addictive - but RPGs are famous for it due to the massive use of tokens. They're essentially cheap skinner boxes - the player gets rewarded with XP, gold, items and whatever other virtual tokens in exchange for grinding (repeatedly fighting battles over and over to level up).

After a while it turns from fun into work but people still keep doing it anyway.

My personal rule with most RPGs is to say that they'll either be insanely boring or insanely addictive - this rule has held up so far, except for my weakness in final fantasy.

With regards to addiction in general though and games or porn, you could argue that anything pleasurable is potentially addictive.

This might sound a bit insensitive...

Can a game really be "that good" that a guy actually died from playing for that long?

Ok, where the fuc*k were his parents? I play Skyrim for five hours straight, only stopping to use the toilet and get some crisps, my mother says i should stop for the day I think that's fair enough.

This guy's parents: ok over a day... what's the harm in that? Let him play his games. What's the worst that could happen? Should we call him down for dinner or at least bring him some food or water? Nah

My mother: 5hrs... I think that's enough. Besides he's probably hungry and dinners ready.

Playing RPGs have measurable effects?

Only in addicts or in everyone?