Man Dies After 40 Hour Diablo III Marathon

Diablo III Death
July 19, 2012 - 4:54am

Diablo III has made a lot of headlines since its release, some for its stellar gameplay, many for its game breaking bugs and irritating DRM and now the death of a Taiwanese teen.

The 18 year old, known only by his surname "Chang," purportedly booked himself a room in a internet cafe and didn't come out for 40 hours. Apparently not eating the whole time he was in there, he was eventually discovered slumped over the desk by an employee. He was woken up, but when he stood to leave, took a few steps and collapsed. Despite being rushed to hospital, he was pronounced dead upon arrival.

An autopsy has yet to take place, but early suggestions on the cause of death include heart complications from remaining still for so long.

In response to the death, Blizzard released a statement saying that the company was saddened by the death, but that it recommended the needs of real life come before all forms of entertainment, including the games it puts out.

This man isn't the first to die during long gaming sessions. Last year a 30 year old Chinese gamer stayed up for more than three days without eating or drinking much at all. Also in 2011, 20 year old Chris Staniforth died during a marathon Xbox run.

Comments

What about his in-game levelling up route and gear??

Am I the only one here who is concerned with his equipment? Was he farming the correct route? We need to make sure that people who game for this long don't beat us in the levelling up race. We need to protect the equipment in the game so that I can get the best gear and compete with these people. Blizzard should release new content so we don't have to die just to get some more incentive to play. I swear, he probably died because we didn't get the level cap and equipment cap expanded.

There were a couple of incidents like this in Korea, too.

In Korea, it was with World of Warcraft. In one case, a guy died in a similar way to the Taiwanese guy in the article. I think the official cause of death was dehydration. In another incident, a young Korean couple left their baby unattended for five hours while they plaid WoW at an Internet cafe. The baby died of suffocation.

An even creepier incident out of Korea was a married couple whose unattended infant starved to death while they played an online game at an internet cafe--taking care of a virtual baby!

You people suck

That was a human being most of you are making fun of. He was someone's son. Without an autopsy, we don't know what kind of health problems he had. Say he didn't have any, then he died due to ignorance. If it was ignorance that killed him, a lot of the commentators here should beware. One "stupid" mistake and it could be game over for you too.

derp

nope... the one from ten years ago was a 48 hour D2 run that ended in bladder bursting as cause of death, again some Asian kid. why does this happen to asian kids more often than american kids? kinda surprising.

wtf ever

obviously the turd was unhealthy before diablo III, forget this kind of headline his death had about as much to do with diablo as it did with my foot fungus!

Good grief

This is no headline, if a person can't understand it's own body limits at such an age is his own fault

And for any people out there spending like 12 hours playing every day please remember to follow basic rules

Eat, Drink, Sleep, Have a shower, Walk out of your house, do what you have to do to live and just at the end play for frak sake

captcha Play Ball!

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