Another Man Dies After Marathon Gaming Session

loserMcloser writes "Another Chinese man has died after spending three days in an internet cafe for an online gaming marathon session. He apparently fainted and died at the cafe from exhaustion. 'The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing. The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."'"

oblig. futurama

[Joe the Lesser]

Scruffy gonna die the way he lived

ObTron

[Cajun Hell]

"I want him in the games until he dies playing." -- MCP

Re:oblig. futurama

[Anonymous Coward]

If you die in the real world, you die in the game!

And the culprit is ....

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

... the lead paint on the game controller.

Re:And the culprit is ....

[Fozzyuw]

And the culprit is ....

Too much over-time at work.

anyone else hear that

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the sound of Jack Thompson creaming his pants

Re:anyone else hear that

[Esion Modnar]

No, that was him releasing his bowels.

Re:

[discogravy]

so...he's been talking again?

Re:anyone else hear that

[sentientbeing]

Whats the problem?

He'll just respawn back at the entrance.

Re:

[EvanED]

He'll just respawn back at the entrance.

"No, don't you get it? If you die in Bejing, you die in real life!"

Re:anyone else hear that

[chemisus]

actually, china has banned respawning [msn.com].

Only one thing to do then ..

[PriceIke]

Guess we'll just have to ban online gaming. How many more have to die??

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[RingDev]

Funny, I thought China already had laws dealing with online gaming... Maybe they just need more laws. Laws will save us all! Yea laws! Because if it's illegal, no one will do it. We just need to make it more illegal.

-Rick

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[mstahl]

It worked here for the war on drugs... oh wait.

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[MBGMorden]

Gun control basically is the same thing: for a gun to really be a problem one must already be prepared to break the law. So given that a willingness to break the law is already a prerequisite for a gun crime to take place: do you really think that the culprit is gonna give a damn that he's breaking a law by obtaining or carrying a gun?

To put it into Slashdot terms: it would be like the government outlawing encryption to prevent terrorists from communicating. If they're talking about blowing up a building do you really think they are afraid to have a copy of PGP installed on their computer? Nope. All outlawing encryption does is take it away from the people who were originally using it for non-illegal purposes, or make criminals out of those who refuse to give it up even if their original actions were perfectly legal. Same applies to guns.

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[theridersofrohan]

Gun control basically is the same thing: for a gun to really be a problem one must already be prepared to break the law. So given that a willingness to break the law is already a prerequisite for a gun crime to take place: do you really think that the culprit is gonna give a damn that he's breaking a law by obtaining or carrying a gun?

That argument has two major holes:

a) It is assuming that people are rational beings and that all actions are well premeditated. It's pretty well known by now that people are irrational [blogspot.com] (hey, how's that for a slashdot audience, this is a blog entry by the gmail creator!). Basically, in a surge of emotion (think domestic fights, a depressed / severely stressed kid (say a highschool shooting)), if one can easily have access to guns (by opening the local cabinet, going to a store, etc.), they can cause massively more damage, significantly more easily.

b) That the massive number of guns going around in a society will always be used by the people they were intended in the way they were intended. This is patently not true, as demonstrated by kids getting access to their grandfather's gun, or various people we (the west) have massively funded and provided guns to (think Bin Laden and the Mujahideen's in Afganistan vs the Soviets, or Saddam versus the Iranians).

There's also, of course, a moral argument. The only primary purpose of the gun is to kill. The whole protection stuff is completely secondary; a gun 'protects' by killing, or threatening to kill. I, personally, think that society has an obligation to protect its citizens, and banning a device the purpose of which is to kill is a good idea.

Guns don't kill people, people kill people. And monkeys kill people. If you give them a gun. (to quote eddie izzard)

Re:

[kernel_panic]

I guess the same can be said about driving a car, or having a penis.

Re:

[sanosuke76]

Disturbed teenagers? Yes, they'll still get them.

Drug-runners? Yes, they'd keep getting them. In fact, if you were to ban weapons here in the US, they'd become the new pipeline for all firearms, and the ones illegally obtained would become MORE dangerous, not less. It's a felony to possess an illegally obtained semi-automatic rifle, and it's a felony to possess a select-fire AK-47. If you're gonna go, go all out.

Random jerks on the street? They'd still have them. The number of times I have been asked

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[Dirtside]

We just need to make it more illegal.

What we really need is to define the standard metric unit of illegality. Here's some options:

- Five-megabyte unauthorized song downloads
- Men's room foot-tappings
- CIA agent identity leakings
- Sports memorabilia thievings

Come up with your own!

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[BorgCopyeditor]

the standard metric unit of illegality

I propose the "hijink."

Re:

[CloneBot]

Or do we? That would be the last thing they would be expecting.

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the last thing they would be expecting is the Spanish Inquisition.

Re:Only one thing to do then ..

[BorgCopyeditor]

Damned liberals with their nanny-state! Saving children from death! How are children going to learn the fatal consequences of dangerous actions if they are constantly protected against them? How are they going to learn to survive on their own if we don't let them die a few times?

Re:

[Bluesman]

Damn straight!

Liberals are always preaching about evolution, but they never seem to want to let it happen.

Die with a smile

[BlowHole666]

All you need is a beer helmet and a chick giving you a blow job and you could die with all your bases covered.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

die with all your bases covered.

All your dead base are belong to us.

Darwin for the Modern Era

[Durrok]

Kinda sad, but really guys there is a reason games/consoles have started reminding you to take breaks. I guess it's better then someone getting killed over ninjaing a drop though...

Re:

[kevmatic]

Hehe, actually, it isn't that a new concept.

For instance, game console manuals have been reminding you to take breaks for many years. The Game Gear manual, I know, had it.

Earthbound (SNES), too, actively alerted you after like 3 hours that you should really take a break (your dad calls your cell phone). It also had billboards about it (Mothers against Obsession or something).

I remember playing Earthbound till it alerted me several times. It helped; I'd be like "Oh CRAP, I have been playing a long time."

Re:

[Durrok]

Heh you know, I rarely played it in long enough stretches to get that warning but a few times. I always though maybe I was missing something whenever he called.

Re:Darwin for the Modern Era

[Babbster]

This isn't a reason for games/console to remind players to take breaks. This is a reason to make even better games that will ensnare more of the world's obviously pathetic genetic material and flush it down the same toilet that this guy went down.

I've had VERY long gaming sessions, even ones where I (quite foolishly) remained sitting for 12 hours in a row. But, one of the reasons I've never gone much longer that is that there were warning signs that I should quit, from yawning to blurred vision. There's no doubt in my mind that people who die in this fashion suffer symptoms long before they keel over, and at the very least there are the symptoms that everyone suffers when they need sleep (like, you know, falling asleep).

Of course, there's plenty of blame to throw around to others as well. How about the staff of this cafe? What could possibly possess them to let this guy keep going? What was he ingesting in order to remain awake for that ridiculous period of time, and why didn't they either stop him ingesting it or stop serving him? Heck, after 24 hours I'd probably call an ambulance on spec! But, it's China, so who knows how people react...still, just the process of one human caring about the welfare of any other should have caused some reaction.

To reiterate my original point, though: Now that it's over, it's probably just as well that he's gone. Not only was he dumb as a half-bag of rocks, but the fact that he could do this to himself in a public place tells me that he's probably better off dead than living in his community.

Re:

[Babbster]

Well, there are a couple of big factors that can cause problems. One, as I wondered about in my OP, is the possibility of chemicals used to stay awake. I don't know what the situation is like in China, so I can't even begin to make an educated guess as to the availability of particular drugs there. And, indeed you're correct about the dangers of sitting in the same position for that long. You can develop a deep venous thrombosis in your leg that can then migrate to your lung, and at that point you're ju

But is it true?

[cduffy]

This is coming from state-run media, it doesn't contain enough details for easy independent verification -- and the state has indicated that combating "Internet addiction" is one of its goals.

There's a lack of truthiness here.

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

There's a lack of truthiness here.

No, there is an overabundance of truthiness here. What's lacking is truthfulness.

Re:

[cduffy]

If there were enough truthiness, we wouldn't be questioning the story's truthfulness... would we?

Re:But is it true?

[gEvil (beta)]

The very definition of 'truthiness' is "this is the truth because I say it is" (see Colbert Report, S01E01). That is exactly what is going on here, and of which you say there is a lack of. 'Truthiness' is not synonymous with 'truthfulness'--it is the antithesis of it.

Re:

[afabbro]

For God's sake, the two of your are arguing about a word made up by a television comedian.

Go outdoors. Now.

Mod parent up

[Rob T Firefly]

Thsi is a very good point. Given the difficulties of controlling what people acess over the Internet, perhaps it's easier to just start subtly demonizing the whole thing.

In other news today ...

[u-235-sentinel]

The State has confirmed today that it has struck a deal with Comcast to provide monitoring services stating had Comcast's service been in place, no one would have died as their Internet service would have been terminated in time to save the victim.

Comcast has yet to release a statement about the deal however the President has been heard stating in the back "It's Comcastic!!"

Re:

[sam0737]

I have seen youths died/fainted/got heart attack for playing MMORPG (or other game like Diablo) for N hours/days straight and those did made newspapers headline.

It's not unimaginable that it happened in a Cyber Cafe, it certainly does happen and will happen.

Re:

[ptelligence]

I guess there's also a risk of pulmonary embolism with players sitting still for so long.

And can the Internet really you?

[Mjlner]

The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet.

The article gives the impression that the Internet has something to do with his death. Exhaustion is exhaustion, regardless of whatever reason you have to stay awek. He could have just been gardening.
It would definitely be more relevant to know whether he was using any stimulants to stay awake.

Re:

[querist]

I see no reason not to believe it.

What would the Chinese media or the Chinese Government gain from this?

There's no reason to release details. It would only embarass the gamer's family. Having an addiction is a weakness, and the media did (IMHO) the right thing in not releasing the gamer's name. There is no reason to shame the gamer or the gamer's family.

Also, if the Chinese Government wanted, they could easily impose a curfew on Internet cafes such as the curfews that are imposed on bars in the USA. In many

Right up there with Fan Death

[tomstdenis]

Go Korea! hehehehe

Maybe this is China's way of making using the Interweb "scary?"

Believe it or not... Parent is actually +5 funny.

[sampson7]

For those of you not up on Korean urban legands -- I present to you:

Fan Death: Menace from Above.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death [wikipedia.org] and http://www.fandeath.net/ [fandeath.net]

The best part of Fan Death is that fans made for the Korean market have automatic timing devices that are designed to prevent "accidental" Fan Death by shutting the fan off.

Wonder why..

[BosstonesOwn]

we always see this stuff coming out of countries in Asia , are they that fanatical about these games ?

I mean geez I have hard enough time playing xbox for more then an hour without having to at least get a bottle of water. How do they do it ?

Do you think when he died he dropped any loot ?

Re:Wonder why..

[mark-t]

Well, it *IS* the most populated place in the world... racial differences notwithstanding, statistically the odds are that for any given random human trait, you are most likely to find it there in the highest quantity.

Re:

[sootman]

As A. Whitney Brown [wikipedia.org] said on Saturday Night Live when China reach a population of one billion: "Even if you're a one-in-a-million kind of person, there's still a thousand people just like you."

Re:

[Bogtha]

we always see this stuff coming out of countries in Asia , are they that fanatical about these games ?

60% of the world's population is Asian. For any given strange occurrence, odds are it happened to an Asian, by weight of numbers alone.

Re:

[PriceIke]

> Do you think when he died he dropped any loot ?

LOL .. love it.

And I thought ...

[thewiz]

"game 'til you drop" was just a euphimism!

Seriously, what makes people drive themselves to die from exhaustion like this?
Looks like addiction to me.

Re:

[BosstonesOwn]

Ahh greatest lines EVER !!! Half Baked !

Cocaine Addict: Marijuana is not a drug. I used to suck dick for coke. Now that's an addiction. You ever suck some dick for marijuana?

Re:And I thought ...

[nelsonal]

I'd guess it's one of two things, either he's earning money by farming loot and if he logs/leaves he will reduce his income substantially (because someone else will get his location or it takes a long time to reach). Or he's really just on the receiving end of a variable schedule reward system [wikipedia.org] and he misses the dopamine hits too much to leave.

This could have been avoided

[Anonymous Coward]

This wouldn't have happened if he had been running Linux.

Re:

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but I see nothing wrong with copying games owned by entities which no longer even exist, which is the case for most games of the 70s and 80s.

I certainly don't see Atari and Midway suing people for trading Pac-Man and Zaxxon roms on Bittorrent.

The problem with today's youth is ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

This is precisely the problem with the youth of today compared to my Great Generation. Just one gamer kicks the bucket and 100 others run away from the scene scared. Come on guys, show some courage. Show some sticktoitiveness.

Re:

[Foobar of Borg]

This is precisely the problem with the youth of today compared to my Great Generation. Just one gamer kicks the bucket and 100 others run away from the scene scared. Come on guys, show some courage. Show some sticktoitiveness.

Yeah, back in my day, kids would play on a pogo stick until they dropped dead. They played on the pogo stick in three feet of snow snow, uphill, both ways! And when you tell kids that today, they never believe you.

Re:

[PriceIke]

I bet the truth is, a few of the gamers left the scene, the others immediately started fighting over his computer (which was likely still logged in) to see who could get his items and gold sent to their toons first.

Mega Kill!!!

[Cedric Tsui]

Double Kill
Multi Kill
Mega Kill!
ULTRA KILL!!
M-m-m-monster Kill.
LUDACRIS KILL!
H O L Y S H I T!

R E A L I T Y KILL!!!!!

Re:Mega Kill!!!

[The One and Only]

LUDACRIS KILL!

There's no evidence he's ever done that. "Ludacris" is a rapper. "Ludicrous" is the adjective you want.

Re:

[pimpimpim]

And even worse, he forgot 'wicked sick'!

Microsoft Vista Prevents this Problem

[517714]

The (lack of) stability of the Operating System prevents running a computer for such marathon sessions.

Re:

[HerculesMO]

Maybe you just suck at computers.

My Vista PC hums along just as nicely as my Ubuntu machine, although I do reboot Vista more often.

Doesn't happen here?

[king-manic]

I'm an Asian gamer with a mild addiction to warcraft 3. I don't understand how Asia can have a few of these incidents and the west has so none.Is there a distinct cultural difference to explain this? Or is it just statistic's? There i about 2.5 billion people in Asia proper vs 1 billion in all of the west. I don't understand how addiction is going to force you to sleep or drink or eat. I suppose I don't understand because all of my addictions are mild and state endorsed (women, video games, food, and tea).

Re:

[plalonde2]

Um, in the west we do autopsies, and usually figure out the dead person had a pre-existing condition. And then it stops being news.

Re:Doesn't happen here?

[vidarlo]

I suppose I don't understand because all of my addictions are mild and state endorsed (women, video games, food, and tea).

Excuse me sir, but I regret to tell you that you're quite addicted to food. Withdrawal will include death and unpleasantness.

Re:Doesn't happen here?

[king-manic]

I suppose I don't understand because all of my addictions are mild and state endorsed (women, video games, food, and tea).

Excuse me sir, but I regret to tell you that you're quite addicted to food. Withdrawal will include death and unpleasantness.

Meh.. I can quit any time I want to.

Re:

[LingNoi]

My guess is that there are no 24 hour internet cafes in the West that's why no one dies. If you're forced to go home you can't play three days straight. With that said you could just play at home I guess... ..Doesn't the guy have a job or something?

Re:Doesn't happen here?

[MightyMartian]

I'm an Asian gamer with a mild addiction to warcraft 3. I don't understand how Asia can have a few of these incidents and the west has so none.Is there a distinct cultural difference to explain this? Or is it just statistic's? There i about 2.5 billion people in Asia proper vs 1 billion in all of the west. I don't understand how addiction is going to force you to sleep or drink or eat. I suppose I don't understand because all of my addictions are mild and state endorsed (women, video games, food, and tea).

Perhaps we have a lot less to escape from.

Re:

[king-manic]

Perhaps we have a lot less to escape from.

I don't know, my cousin in guangzhou has a life similar to mine. Wake up, work 8-10 h at a tech shop. Go home spend a few hours with the GF. game. Sleep. Except I get 1 more day off a week, My overtime is optional and infrequent, and my GF is hotter although his is very cute too. Life isn't so bad in the parts of china I visited (shanghai, beijing, guangzhou, HK, Macau, Xin Hua).

Re:

[eebra82]

I don't understand how Asia can have a few of these incidents and the west has so none.

The keyword is a few. You can't start thinking of physiological or social differences and base it on a handful of incidents if you have such a large number of "computer addicts". And frankly, there may be undocumented victims in the U.S. too.

Re:

[Bellum Aeternus]

Being an American who has lived in Asia and is an avid gamer my answer to your question: I have no freak'n idea. American (western) gamers play about as much as Asian gamers. I'd estimate extreme gamers probably play about 4-6 hours a day in reality (not me, I only wish I had that kind of spare time). The only difference I see is that in Asia it's usually in an Internet Cafe with smoke so think you'd think the building was on fire. Hey, maybe that's it! Smoke inhalation kills! News at eleven.

The other opti

Re:Doesn't happen here?

[happyemoticon]

In my experience, Asian gamers take it a helluva lot more seriously. I used to play SC2 against my roommate. I just wanted to pick it up and play every once in a while, and learn a few tricks. I could beat almost anybody else on the floor. My roommate, though, his goal was to become a monster. And so we were pretty competitive for a few months, and then I lost interest in improving while he just kept at it. He became nigh-unbeatable. It was pretty much the same deal with respect to CounterStrike and two other Asian guys in the building or Starcraft and another set of people who liked that or whatever else we were playing back then.

As for whether this applies to general work ethic, or sports, or arts, I'm not so sure, but it seems very true of gaming.

Re:Doesn't happen here?

[bigstrat2003]

I used to play SC2 against my roommate.

Hey man, can I borrow your time machine? Cool, thanks!

Marathon session

[Pojut]

We had a week-long LAN party during the summer between 11th and 12th grade (wow...I know I'm still quite young only 23, but DAMN that feels like a long time ago) It was quite cool the way it worked. There were a total of about 20 people or so in this one dude's basement...we would essentially play in "shifts"...10 people or so would play for 3-5hours while the others slept. Rinse and repeat.

That was a hell of a week.

Re:

[Hadlock]

We had a lan party summer after our senior year (23 also - represent) and only 15 people, but also 15 computers. More people (girlfriends, friends without computers - about 20 in all) would drift in and out for about three days, go see a movie/get food and come back. People slept on the floor when they were tired (typically 3am-10am), and gamed/socialized set shit on fire (hey, they were in high school)... but they still obeyed their bodily functions. You're an idiot to stay seated and play video games cont

Re:

[ccozan]

Heh. In 1996 we got our university lab outfitted with 5 SUN machines. What did we do first? Put dgaDoom on them and played. We played for about 48 hours. It was crazy... With the exception of going to bathroom, we stayed and played deathmatches (!) one after another. We even hired the low-graders to bring us food and drinks :).

Man, what times ...

Re:Marathon session

[Pojut]

Nonsense! We rinsed out the bongs twice a day during that week ;-)

Exploited by the evil multinationals

[mi]

Obviously, the man was driven to death by the evil corporations dealing in virtual worlds' artifacts [wikipedia.org]. His "gaming" was, in fact, earning a (hard) living. Just another casualty of America's insatiable corporate greed.

Not really an epidemic

[OrangeTide]

A lot more people die from sky diving every year, and I think most of us accept that sky diving is not an epidemic social problem.

Real problems could include: chronic disease, car accidents, criminal violence, ...

I think it's more of a problem that 100 people fled the scene than one guy dying from his compulsive personality disorder.

Re:Not really an epidemic

[TopShelf]

A lot more people die from sky diving every year, and I think most of us accept that sky diving is not an epidemic social problem.

Hey, some people are addicted to computer games, some are addicted to gravity...

Re:Not really an epidemic

[GrayCalx]

Hey, some people are addicted to computer games, some are addicted to gravity...

I tried going off gravity cold turkey... I crashed hard.

/I'm here all week... tip your mods.

Re:

[Dirtside]

My wife pointed out that the phrase "the leading cause of death" is one we need to be careful of, because it only tells you what caused the *most* deaths, not whether something causes an unacceptably large amount of deaths. (Yes, yes, what's an "acceptable death," bite me.) It came up in the context of neonatal deaths; she pointed out that one day, all causes of neonatal death will have been wiped out, and then one newborn will get eaten by a dingo and suddenly dingoes will be the "leading cause of death

How appropriate

[hansamurai]

I love the quote/proverb at the bottom of my comments:

To err is human -- to blame it on a computer is even more so.

Oblig. joke

[Cutriss]

I know Bungie worked on Marathon, and it's a decent enough game, but certainly there are better games to kill yourself over...

Chinese != Korean

[ToastyKen]

Did I miss something? As far as I've heard, the only other case of death from gaming exhausting happened in Korea, but the submitter says "another Chinese man"...

Re:

[Cro Magnon]

Meh! They all look alike. j/k

hypocrisy

[Lord Ender]

A few weeks ago there was a post about a programming competition sponsored by Microsoft in which students were expected to stay up for 24 hours straight and eat soda and junk food while coding.

People here are laughing about this guy because he neglected sleep and nutrition to compete in this contest. They are saying "darwin award." Where was this same sentiment when Microsoft caused students to do the same thing for a different contest?

Health should come before work and play, people! Your job is worthless if you are dead or ill from a terrible lifestyle. Don't let your boss force this behavior on you, and don't let companies like Microsoft force it on students.

24 hours? lol

[everphilski]

24 hours is nothing. You've never pulled an all-nighter to get a semester project completed?

Are you telling me you can't see the difference between a voluntary competition (hint: its kinda fun to pull an all-nighter every now and then... I have a wife and 2 kids and if I come across a fun project, I still do it from time to time) and a man who was either incapable of determining his tolerance or chose to ignore it (most likely the latter)?

And I suppose you would have people oppose the voluntary fund raiser Up till Dawn [stjude.org] as well? I mean, think of the college students that will be kept up all night and have to go to class in the morning!

Fatality

[teknopurge]

Rayden Wins.

*scary lightening*

OOOGEEEBAAAAGEEWAAA!!!!!!!!11

Was it really out of fear?

[Hel Toupee]

The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death.

Are we sure it wasn't just the smell?

How can this happen?

[llZENll]

You hear about people surviving the wild for days or weeks with little or no food and water, and these people are hiking or walking, and in very hot or cold climates. So how is that only after 3 days someone who is just sitting there using almost no muscles can die in such a short time? Are they so malnurished that any day without food and water is death? Is their brain using so much energy gaming it starves their body?

Only on Slashdot

[Critical Facilities]

He apparently fainted and died at the cafe from exhaustion. 'The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing.

How funny/sad is that? No "did he have a medical condition?", no "was there evidence of foul play", no "is there an autopsy scheduled", just "what game was he playing?"

Obligatory

[sam_paris]

Did he drop any good loot?

Backfiring of "one child per family" policy

[ObiWonKanblomi]

I heard a really good article a few weeks ago on NPR where sociologists were looking into the root cause of internet/gaming addiction in China. One interesting theory is that this generation of gamers is the product of the "one child per family" policy in China. Essentially this generation in China is full of only-children. This is bound to cause social issues, and this internet/gaming addiction is only a symptom of a larger sociological problem.

Re:$5 says...

[njfuzzy]

So technically that means he died at work? Go figure.

What? It did say he was Chinese, right?

What?

...I'm just sayin'.

Re:$5 says...

[slughead]

>He died playing WoW. Do I have any takers?

If that were true, I'd say his life just improved.

Re:$5 says...

[Farmer Tim]

>He died playing WoW. Do I have any takers?

If that were true, I'd say his life just improved.

Perhaps he thought his Second Life would kick in.

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

The headline says it was a Marathon gaming session. I didn't even know Marathon was an online game...

Re:

[dextromulous]

Well, he is not the only guy to die during a marathon [wikipedia.org]

Re:$5 says...

[Farmer Tim]

Actually, the first Marathon [wikipedia.org] was fatal.

Nobody ever learns from history.