Man Dies in Internet Cafe After 19-Hour World of Warcraft Binge
A 24-year-old gamer has died in a Shanghai Internet cafe after playing a marathon session of the popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft.
VentureBeat reports that a Chinese gamer died after playing a 19-hour binge of World of Warcraft in a Shanghai Internet cafe. After an Internet cafe patron found 24-year-old Wu Tai unresponsive, he called for paramedics, who unfortunately were unable to resuscitate Wu back to life.
“An autopsy will determine the cause of death, but there seems little doubt his playing on the computer for 19 hours instead of resting contributed to his death," said a representative for the Shanghai police force.
The gamer sitting near Wu first called for an ambulance (mind you, the Internet cafe's attendant did not check up on him) after noticing that he was very pale. Wu was also heard groaning and wiping his mouth with blood-stained napkin. Blood coming from his mouth or nose suggests that Wu may have had some type of serious illness that likely played a part in his death.
“I suddenly heard him groan, and when I turned to see what had happened, he was very pale and looked uncomfortable. He was dabbing his mouth with a hanky, which had blood on it," said Hsin Lo, the gamer who called for paramedics. “I asked him if he was OK, and he said he’d felt better, but that he would be OK. I called for an ambulance while my friend went to get some help from staff. But while we waited, he just died in front of us, and there was nothing the staff could do.”
Just a few months ago, a 32-year-old gamer died in an Internet cafe in Kaohsiung, Taiwan after playing PC games for three days straight. The Internet cafe's attendant simply left the person alone and thought he was sleeping while he ran-up the clock on the time he purchased to play on a cafe computer. A gamer in the United Kingdom died in 2011 after a blood clot formed in his leg after a 12-hour Xbox 360 binge. In October 2013, a McDonald's in China and the shopping mall adjacent to it were heavily damaged after an electrical fire. The mall's security guards ignored the mall's fire alarm, eventually disabling it, while they continued to play mobile games throughout the night. There have been multiple incidents involving Asian gamers dying in Internet cafes after gaming marathons throughout the past few years, and it unfortunately seems like Wu Tai's will not be the last until the owners of these establishments start enforcing harsher rules on its staff to regularly check on its patrons.
We here at Arcade Sushi encourage all of our readers and fellow gamers to occasionally take breaks and walk around every few hours while playing to avoid preventable, tragic and unfortunate events such as these.