Gamers ignore corpse in Internet cafe

[@ruantec]

http://www.taipeitimes.com/images/2012/02/04/P01-120204-A1.jpg

A 23-year-old man died in an Internet cafe in New Taipei City (新北市) after 10 straight hours of gaming on Tuesday and police said yesterday they were shocked to find complete disinterest from the other gamers in the cafe during their investigation.

According to police, Chen Jung-yu (陳榮宥), who worked at Northern Taoyuan Cable TV as an engineer, had paid for 23 hours at a New Taipei City Internet cafe at 10pm on Tuesday to play World of Warcraft, but died 10 hours later.

The clerk at the Internet cafe said Chen was a frequent customer at the cafe, and had taken the corner seat in the first row after coming into the cafe on Tuesday night, adding that at about 3pm on Wednesday, Chen’s head drooped slightly and his hands were stretched in front of him, touching the keyboard.

“I thought that he was only dozing off and paid no particular attention,” the clerk said, adding that when he went to wake Chen up when his 23 hours were up, he saw that his face was blackened and that he was sitting rigidly in the sofa chair.

Seeing Chen’s hands rigidly stretched out in front of him as if he were still gaming when he moved the sofa chair back, the clerk said he called police.

About 10 other players were in the cafe, but said they only knew something had happened after the police started cordoning off the area for forensic sweeps, but to the police officers’ surprise, most either stayed in front of their computers and kept on gaming or took little interest.

A slip for an appointment at National Taiwan University Hospital was found in Chen’s scooter storage space, and the preliminary cause of death is suspected to be organ failure after he stayed up through the night gaming, police said.

The police have asked coroners to perform an autopsy to clarify the cause of death, and they asked Chen’s father to identify the body yesterday.

An initial police investigation found that he might have died of a cardiac arrest triggered by low temperatures.

On the issue of other players in the cafe not paying any attention to someone’s death, National Tsing Hua University Institute of Sociology professor Wang Chin-shou (王俊秀) yesterday said that once people were addicted to games and the Internet, it is easy for them to over-indulge and blur the lines between the virtual and the real world.

Long-time immersion in virtual worlds of killing and violence can cause players to become desensitized to their actual surroundings, Wang said.

Addressing the effect of Internet cafes on health, Paochien Hospital cardiologist Hsieh Pu-lin (謝普霖) said sitting in a cigarette-smoke-filled Internet Cafe can lead to acute vascular obstruction and an irregular heart beat, adding that cramped quarters in Internet cafes were detrimental to circulation, which could lead to minor thrombophlebitis.

If one suddenly stood up in such a situation, a blood clot could rise to the lungs and obstruct breathing, and even in severe instances cause sudden death, he said.


Source (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2012/02/04/2003524636)

WOW gamers are hardcore gamers.....

[Xblade]

Organ failure? What ever happened to falling asleep. There are some obvious conditions they are neglecting to mention in this article.

[@ruantec]

I'm still wondering how this happened because his hands were still touching the keyboard as if he were still playing... when someone have an organ failure i expect that person to fall down or just make weird sounds but never sit like that still touching the keyboard...

[Fadingz]

I am so glad I am not into MMORPG's
Well, other than my own private LAN servers.


I'm still on 12:00am to 10:00am sleeping schedule.
I don't think I can survive w/o 10 hrs of sleep everyday.

[Xblade]

I've skipped sleep so many times for school purposes...

[Fadingz]

Well... me too lol.
Skip sleep as the price for procrastinating 99% of the time lol

Then I sleep in class, instead.

[@ruantec]

Sleep 4 hours today... went on 1:30 AM to bed and woke up on 5:30 AM to go back to work... still i feel full of energy!

[Muscab]

I have played games for like 12 hours of non stop then continuing with internet surfing for the next hours. Done this for 5 straight days, and I'm still alive. How lucky was that.

[Princess Garnet]

Well, they initially ignored what they didn't realize, but we're a rather desensitized society, and not just gamers or whoever.

Anyway, yeah, that's definitely odd just up and dying like that, but isn't that how it seems to be in this cases most of the time? I wonder why. Are there just that many people who overdo it, or is it sudden with little warning, perhaps for other reasons too? That's kind of scary.

[Hard core Rikki]

Horde, clearly.

Few addicts would pay attention to their surroundings, much less notice the consistent presence of the same person in its place.
He paid for 23 hours play, played 10, and only got found out 9 later?

[Smilley]

This reminds me of two things: the urban legends story told in (IIRC) The Transporter, where one guy would sit dead in a subway all day, without anyone noticing. The other being a scene from The Simpsons, when Marge had a gambling addiction:

Smithers: Don't you think you've played enough?
Marge: No!
Smithers: OK, we are obligated to ask every 72 hours. <to a bouncer> Bring her another complimentary drink!

[Xblade]

Horde, clearly.

Few addicts would pay attention to their surroundings, much less notice the consistent presence of the same person in its place.
He paid for 23 hours play, played 10, and only got found out 9 later?

Wouldn't he start decaying? Maybe the A.C was over 9000.

[Hard core Rikki]

Rot slows in chilly environment.

[Radix865]

Rot slows in chilly environment.

Have you ever stood next to a real hardcore nerd? Their smell is...quite pungent.

Still, rot is quite different but it might help explain why they never noticed... Room full of nerds sitting there for hours after hours, I doubt the place had much fresh air left!:lol:

[Thanakil]

Looks like the story changed from "He was playing League of Legends" to "He was playing WoW". (LoL made a lot more sense, too)

Anyway, this is a sad story. I've been in an internet cafe once to get something to drink and the atmosphere was... Not good. Not the kind of place I feel like going to.

[Hard core Rikki]

Have you ever stood next to a real hardcore nerd? Their smell is...quite pungent.
Have you played with dead people? Yeah, thought so.

Looks like the story changed from "He was playing League of Legends" to "He was playing WoW". (LoL made a lot more sense, too)
All other sources mention League of legends and its 400% exp boost event, so it couldve been a correction stunt to surf on WoW's popularity. This happens all the times on news, throw Apple's name anywhere no matter the news, instantly goes trending across the web.

[Strike105X]

Well things like this make realize that it was good to get over my L2 addiction lol, as for the smell part, its no wonder from what i read in the article it was a smocking zone, so its pretty safe to assume that overshadowed the majority of other oders.

[Princess Garnet]

It's hard to make out, but is that maybe a no smoking sign above on the wall in that picture? I think the bit about smoking in the article was just comments in general; not necessarily to do with this case.

[Kaizen]

Well, they initially ignored what they didn't realize, but we're a rather desensitized society, and not just gamers or whoever.

Anyway, yeah, that's definitely odd just up and dying like that, but isn't that how it seems to be in this cases most of the time? I wonder why. Are there just that many people who overdo it, or is it sudden with little warning, perhaps for other reasons too? That's kind of scary.

Severe muscular atrophy. It's the same way anorexics die of heart failure.

This guy played wow all of his waking life, his heart weakened too much.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

0_o if the cause of death mentioned in the article is true then I must be immortal. I've lost track of how many times I've pulled all-nighters or gone with very little sleep.

That said I don't see what sort of reaction they wanted...I mean unless I was really close and in the way of the cops I can honestly say I'd either have continued whatever I was busy with or gone home as well, perhaps since I paid money probably tried to finish. If they'd be expecting me to be all shocked and throw up all over the place and mutter as if I've been trough some traumatic experience then they've been watching too many Hollywood movies. Or if they were expecting me to stare in awe at what they were doing then they haven't watched enough Hollywood.

[Strike105X]

0_o if the cause of death mentioned in the article is true then I must be immortal. I've lost track of how many times I've pulled all-nighters or gone with very little sleep.

lol i missed that part, same here, i mean for over a year i had the beautiful schedule of ~22 hours of lineage the majority of time (with breaks for water/shower/eating)...

[Xblade]

All other sources mention League of legends and its 400% exp boost event, so it couldve been a correction stunt to surf on WoW's popularity. This happens all the times on news, throw Apple's name anywhere no matter the news, instantly goes trending across the web.

When did this happen and why was I not informed?

[Kaizen]

0_o if the cause of death mentioned in the article is true then I must be immortal. I've lost track of how many times I've pulled all-nighters or gone with very little sleep.

That said I don't see what sort of reaction they wanted...I mean unless I was really close and in the way of the cops I can honestly say I'd either have continued whatever I was busy with or gone home as well, perhaps since I paid money probably tried to finish. If they'd be expecting me to be all shocked and throw up all over the place and mutter as if I've been trough some traumatic experience then they've been watching too many Hollywood movies. Or if they were expecting me to stare in awe at what they were doing then they haven't watched enough Hollywood.


You can see the dead dude in the picture. He should have eaten more if he planned to waste away.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Other than that the dude is in rigor there's not much I can tell from the pic.

The dude is small/thin yes but there is that asian stereotype even if that's a racist way to look at things. Nothing to me to suggest he's somehow less than he should be.

[Hard core Rikki]

To preserve lives or whatever resembles them closest, young one.

[Kaizen]

Other than that the dude is in rigor there's not much I can tell from the pic.

The dude is small/thin yes but there is that asian stereotype even if that's a racist way to look at things. Nothing to me to suggest he's somehow less than he should be.

The heart attack suggest so to me :p

If a dude can sit at a computer for 10 hours at a time regularly and is still that thin, he rarely eats and can take himself away from the pc to take care of his needs. Over a long time, muscular atrophy would be much more significant than an overweight super sedentary person.

He may look thin but he's very fat in relative body composition.

[thelittlegumnut]

I've skipped sleep so many times for school purposes...

Well... me too lol.
Skip sleep as the price for procrastinating 99% of the time lol

Then I sleep in class, instead.

mmm... ya i can relate :lol:

[GeominorAI]

0_o if the cause of death mentioned in the article is true then I must be immortal. I've lost track of how many times I've pulled all-nighters or gone with very little sleep.

My current record is five continuous day's and night's worth of work without sleep, and I am still here.

[Hy-Def]

Very very creepy. I don't think it would be because of lack of sleep alone though...

[Hard core Rikki]

geo doesnt sleep. He suspends to RAM.

[Princess Garnet]

...which is a form of sleep!

Five days!? Yikes, I'd never make that one. I can't even do two, not anymore anyway (one and a half is before I start really feeling the need to sleep).

[Strike105X]

geo doesnt sleep. He suspends to RAM.

lets hope nobody thinks his shutdown and decides to upgrade the ram :dead:.

[Fadingz]

I had pulled an all-nighter once, then I slept at 6:00pm and woke up at 6:00pm started that afternoon.

[Radix865]

Damn you guys are nerds... Most I've ever done is playing to around 4-6 am. But then I usually slept to 2-4 pm!:lol: I consider my sleep time being more important than gaming.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Who said anything about gaming? Unfortunately left to the last second school projects and assignments don't write themselves. And once I just had finish that Clancy Book. Never pulled all-nighters gaming.

[Radix865]

Who said anything about gaming? Unfortunately left to the last second school projects and assignments don't write themselves. And once I just had finish that Clancy Book. Never pulled all-nighters gaming.

Schoolwork!?!:lol:

I'm the kind that rarely does his homework, rarely studies for exams and pisses off people who did by gettting better grades than them!:thumb::lol:

[Beatrix]

I am the same. I cannot play games for any long lenght of time....my PS3 sits unused these days.

[SCHUMI_4EVER]

Schoolwork!?!:lol:

I'm the kind that rarely does his homework, rarely studies for exams and pisses off people who did by gettting better grades than them!:thumb::lol:

Well I'm talking back in propper school and yeah I was also like that but some projects had to be done or you weren't allowed to pass no matter how good your grade.

Haven't needed to pull an Academic all-nighter since I got done with school.

[Princess Garnet]

I played all night with Phil once, but I wouldn't call it pulling an all nighter since my schedule is different, so I wasn't necessarily up all of both the day prior and after. I probably couldn't do that except if I forced myself to on a really good night.

Back when I was younger and had a more typical schedule, I stayed up rather late somewhat often, usually playing PlayStation or SNES RPGs. I still do it (only with PC games of various genres; consoles are done to me), but as said, my schedule is different so I don't consider it the same.

I could never play for as many hours straight though. That session with Phil was actually probably a nearly lone exception within the last few years. So, playing late doesn't mean playing for hours upon hours on end and doing nothing but.