Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/22/online_death/
Three-day gaming session kills Chinese man
Another victim of online marathons
Posted in Bootnotes, 22nd February 2011 17:03 GMT
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A Beijing man has died at the end of a three-day online gaming marathon during which "he did not sleep and barely ate".
According to the Beijing Times, reported [1] via the BBC, the unnamed 30-year-old collapsed in a net cafe on the outskirts of the city, and attempts to revive him failed.
He'd apparently worked his way through 10,000 yuan (£928) feeding his gaming habit in the month before his fatal final session.
In September 2007, another 30-year-old male, from the province of Guangzhou, died of exhaustion [2] at the end of an equally ill-advised three-day net cafe online sitting.
Earlier in the same year, a 26-year-old chap from Jinzhou, Liaoning province spent "almost all" of the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday glued to a computer game, with terminal consequences [3].
The BBC notes that "tens of millions of Chinese people - many of them teenagers - are addicted to internet gaming, despite curbs introduced by the authorities aimed at tackling the problem".
The country recently attempted to mobilise [4] parents to combat excessive net use among youngsters, prompting one resigned father to sigh: "It's unnecessary and it will prompt more rebelliousness from the children." ®