Taiwanese teen dies at Internet cafe after 40-hour game marathon

Tainan - An 18-year-old Taiwanese man, identified as Chuang, is reportedly dead after playing 40 hours straight of Diablo III, an action role-playing video game, in a room he booked at an Internet cafe in Tainan.

If you think the average American or Canadian child plays too much video games – reports say a young person can accumulate 10,000 hours of video game playing by the age of 21 – then you should look no further than Taiwan, where a man was found dead in February from cardiac arrest after undergoing 23 hours of game play. Another disturbing story is making the rounds of excessive gameplay. According to a report from the Associated Press, Chuang, an 18-year-old teenager, was found dead inside an Internet cafe in Tainan, a city in southwest Taiwan. The Taiwanese teen apparently booked a room at the cafe on July 13 and played Diablo III for 40 hours straight without consuming any food, taking a nap or standing up to stretch. On July 15, an attendant at the cafe woke the teen up in which he then stood up to take a couple of steps for a few moments, but he immediately collapsed onto the floor. He was sent to the hospital and pronounced dead upon arriving at the local hospital. An autopsy is still underway, but authorities note that sitting for that long of a period of time could lead to blood clots, which in this case, have proven fatal. Blizzard, the gamemaker of Diablo III, urged its gamers to play in moderation. “While we recognise 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,” a spokesperson for the company told the Herald Sun. Deaths from excessive game playing haven’t been reported yet in the United States or Canada, but they have happened in Asia and other parts of the world. Last year, a 30-year-old Chinese man died after he played a video game for three days straight. In 2005, an avid South Korean game player died after also playing a video game for 72 hours without a break.