Death by Diablo

Dieddddddddd

A Taiwanese man, age 18, reportedly died after playing Diablo III for two days without food or sleep. He had rented a private room at an Internet cafe on Friday at lunch. On Sunday, an employee found him asleep. He briefly woke up and then collapsed. From CVG:

Blizzard released a statement following Chuang's death:
"We're saddened to hear this news, and our thoughts are with his family and friends during this difficult time. We don't feel it would be appropriate for us to comment further without knowing all of the circumstances involved.
"While we recognize that it's ultimately up to each individual or their parent or guardian to determine playing habits, we feel that moderation is clearly important, and that a person's day-to-day life should take precedence over any form of entertainment."

"Man dies after playing Diablo III for 40 hours"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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http://www.facebook.com/eric.hopson.50 Eric Hopson

Nice picture choice.
Chris Lee

Oh, great. Now his gear degraded by 10%.
http://twitter.com/spleenal Spleenal

Feeding tubes in internet cafes is the way to go.
- Jerril
  
  Not gonna help – it looks like it was a circulatory problem.
  - RedShirt77
    
    Ok, feeding tube and standing work station.
    - Jerril
      
      That actually sounds like a winning combo.
      
      Charge 10$ extra for the treadmill workstation and call it a weightloss plan.
      - RedShirt77
        
        I give you permission to take my idea and make a million dollars. If it works please send me one complimentary walking game station.
    - http://twitter.com/Satur9 SaturNine
      
      Standing workstation would actually be a great way to impose time limits without actually having formal time limits.
- OldBrownSquirrel
  
  Feeding tubes won’t help. The best way to die from not moving your legs for forty hours is pulmonary embolism secondary to deep vein thrombosis. From the article: “The cause of death has yet to be determined, but authorities suspect that, after spending such a long time seated, Chuang suffered cardiovascular problems or a fatal blood clot.” People sometimes have similar problems from long (e.g. trans-Pacific) plane flights.
  - Melissa
    
    So treadmill desks would save lives?
    - OldBrownSquirrel
      
      Funny you should mention. I’m at my treadmill desk, though since the treadmill is currently off it’s functionally a standing desk, and I do have Diablo III installed on this machine.
Dave Faris

Is the game really that compelling?
- znt
  
  I enjoyed it for a month or two, but no, not THAT compelling.
  - Finnagain
    
    A month or two straight through?! That’s hardcore.
- atteSmythe
  
  I can see it being so.
  
  It’s a slot machine. But, it’s a slot machine where your skill contributes to how often you can pull the lever, and to some extent how good the payouts are.
- Jerril
  
  You get the occasional person who decides they’re not leaving the toilet either (and not because they’ve got a smartphone with videogames with them). But we don’t call sitting on the shitter for 40 hours “compelling”, we call that person “crazy”.
  
  One person out of however many hundred thousands of customers suggests that guy was the kind of person who shouldn’t have been left unsupervised for 40 hours, not that Diablo III has some sort of mind-control powers.
fuzzyfuzzyfungus

I always have to wonder about the pre-existing or exacerbating conditions with these stories…

48 hours without sleep isn’t fun; but it is something that a great many people tolerate just fine on a number of occasions in life.

48 hours without food, similarly, isn’t pleasant at all; but still quite sub-lethal.

Did he fail a DVT check? Is this the cyber-athlete version of the occasional ‘apparently healthy kid just dies for no reason while playing $SPORT’ stories that come up?
- Jerril
  
  No, it’s more like the cyber-athlete version of “apparently healthy kid without a helmet tries to ride his bike down the handrail, lands on helmetless head, dies”. Or if you prefer, it’s like playing the choking game.
  
  Sitting still in a computer chair for 40 hours is a very unexciting dangerous thing. Especially leaning forward to use the keyboard and mouse – it puts more pressure on that line on your thighs where the front of your seat gentle presses in… constricting the bloodflow in your legs.
  
  Bloodflow gets slowed down enough, a blood clot forms. Guy gets up, bloodflow is suddenly unrestricted AND the body diverts more blood to the legs so he can walk.
  
  Blood clot gets dislodged by the faster bloodflow, floats around and up to the blood vessels around the lungs or heart. Plugs something vital, and then that’s all he wrote.
  
  EDIT: Dehydration doesn’t help much either.
  - Jerril
    
    Actually, the article mentions they found him asleep on the keyboard – that’s by definition leaning forward, applying more pressure on the back of the thighs.
    
    Tragic: He might have lived if he’d only passed out leaning backwards, or they’d woken him up earlier.
  - Mr. Son
    
    “Especially leaning forward to use the keyboard and mouse – it puts more pressure on that line on your thighs where the front of your seat gentle presses in… constricting the bloodflow in your legs.”
    
    So the fact that I sit cross-legged with my legs pulled up in the chair is reducing my chance of getting a blood clot and ending up like this man? Awesome.
    
    ‘Course, I do get up for food, bathroom, sleep, etc. every 2-4 hours, at least, so there’s that.
    
    *Feels slightly less worried about himself*
BarBarSeven

He died doing what he loved!
- soylent_plaid
  
  He loved pulmonary embolisms?
  - https://launchpad.net/~googoleyes koanhead
    
    Pulmonary embolism isn’t something you do. It’s something that does you.
EH

2005 redux: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4137782.stm
- Jonathan Badger
  
  Or 1982 redux — the first known death by video gaming.
ddh819

just waiting for someone to forward this story to me as a warning… “see! don’t play game too much!!! you will die!!! I told you! love, mom”
solid_ekans

Permadeath amirite?!
- malindrome
  
  Human existance is one long Hardcore mode.
  - Finnagain
    
    If you’re playing a white, American, male, you’re playing on the Easy setting.
    - fuzzyfuzzyfungus
      
      It’s certainly true that certain race/class builds are substantially overpowered in the early and mid game; but late game opponents that inflict permanent stat damage are still pretty tough, and nobody has ever beaten the final boss…
http://twitter.com/KKyle Kyle Kilzer

ewww… a private room at an internet cafe. Better bring some Lysol.
http://twitter.com/LennStar_de LennStar

So… Blizzard spent thousands of man-hours to hone the game so that people would play and play and play (in short: get addicted).
You have to be online so play. Blizzard knows exactly when and how long you are online.
So what is the problem in lets say: You can play only 20hours a day, after 30 hours the game shuts (with an appropriate message) for 4 hours?
No non-addicted person plays longer then 20 hours.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  Have you considered a position with the Chinese censorship authorities?
  
  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4183340.stm
- http://tomcat.pip.verisignlabs.com/ Tommy
  
  They’ll just get another account and continue playing.
Daemonworks

40 hours of playing a video game isn’t enough to kill you unless something was dreadfully wrong already. Hell, 40 hours without food and water won’t kill a healthy person.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Spitty-Sumo/100002601661770 Spitty Sumo

i wonder if he was a gold farmer.
http://obsidian.kokolis.net Chloramphenicol

I played Skyrim for 44 hours straight on release night, and I’m still here. Of course, I sat in a comfortable couch, shifted positions regularly, and got up for bio breaks every couple of hours.
- Jerril
  
  Yep, getting up and walking around every couple of hours is a great prevention method for thrombosis. Exactly what they recommend for long-haul flights too – Vancouver to Sydney in cattle class where you can’t move your legs, for instance.
- Dave Faris
  
  …and aside from that arrow to the knee, you’re fine.
Emo Pinata

More proof D3 is more MMORPGer than ARPG!!1!!!1!
mccrum

So, did he level up to where he wanted to be?
Alex Riepl

I lived in Taiwan for a year an often visited the internet cafes in the middle of the night to skype with friends back in America, and basically 95% of the people who patronize these businesses are there for Online Gaming.

About this story I have one thing to say:

ONLY 40 hours of game play??? Seriously, that is nothing; camping out there for a week renting three computers so you can manage a host of characters is pretty normal.
- fuzzyfuzzyfungus
  
  “ONLY 40 hours of game play??? Seriously, that is nothing; camping out there for a week renting three computers so you can manage a host of characters is pretty normal.”
  The death of the weak is a vital step in preserving the fitness of the gamer population…
cstatman

what lvl was he, and where did all his rares go? :P
http://artdonovan.typepad.com Art

You mean they still have internet cafes?

And they actually have private rooms???????

WTF!
- DewiMorgan
  
  Private rooms is sort of an obvious evolutionary step.
http://marrickvillian.blogspot.com/ Al Corrupt

Killer game.
- AviSolomon
  
  ”Diabolical” is more like it.
https://twitter.com/misterjayem MrJM

“Man dies after playing Diablo III for 40 hours”

Much sadder headline: Man dies after completing 40-hour workweek