2008 Woodie Awards
Man in Korea dies from playing video games
Mariah Tess
Issue date: 10/4/07 Section: Fun House
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Just about everybody knows how it feels when you do something you enjoy. Nobody ever wants to stop doing whatever makes them happy. Be it a gripping novel that you're really into, an intense round of cards, or what have you-hopefully it is legal. You say, "Just one more chapter!" or "One more round, I swear to drunk I'm not God!" Usually, however, you eventually have to stop whether you have to go to the bathroom, you have homework, or you just got arrested. Something necessitates that you stop that activity and do something else. Not so in the case of an unnamed, 30 year-old South Korean man who died after playing video games for three days straight at an Internet café in the city of Taegu.
Witnesses say he would only take short breaks to go to the bathroom. If you ask me, this was his first mistake, he could've just used a plastic bottle. He also took short naps on a makeshift bed by pushing some tables together right in the middle of the café. He didn't eat very much of anything, aside from some Crawlers and a few jelly doughnuts.
It was reported that he lost his job a few days earlier after not going to work because he was playing video games instead. Big surprise there! When he didn't come home, his mother asked some of his former colleagues (that's right, colleagues, not necessarily friends, because she probably couldn't get a hold of 1337Master986 instead) to find him. When they found him, he told them he would finish the game. If he didn't finish the game in three days, how would he finish it in a few minutes and then come home in time for dinner. He died a few minutes later-in real life, that is, not in the game. If he only died in the game, I wouldn't be writing this.
"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a Taegu provincial police official told Reuters.
South Korea has a highly developed gaming industry. More than 30 million people (around 30 percent of South Korea's population) are registered for online gaming. The country also hosts the annual "World Cyber Games," which, according to the WCG Web site, is "a global tournament in which sport is conducted within the medium of cyberspace, also known as e-sports." It's essentially like the Olympics, except instead of years of physical training for certain events, it's a bunch of computer nerds competing against each other in various video games. And I'm sure they're in comfy computer chairs and temperature controlled rooms.
Witnesses say he would only take short breaks to go to the bathroom. If you ask me, this was his first mistake, he could've just used a plastic bottle. He also took short naps on a makeshift bed by pushing some tables together right in the middle of the café. He didn't eat very much of anything, aside from some Crawlers and a few jelly doughnuts.
It was reported that he lost his job a few days earlier after not going to work because he was playing video games instead. Big surprise there! When he didn't come home, his mother asked some of his former colleagues (that's right, colleagues, not necessarily friends, because she probably couldn't get a hold of 1337Master986 instead) to find him. When they found him, he told them he would finish the game. If he didn't finish the game in three days, how would he finish it in a few minutes and then come home in time for dinner. He died a few minutes later-in real life, that is, not in the game. If he only died in the game, I wouldn't be writing this.
"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a Taegu provincial police official told Reuters.
South Korea has a highly developed gaming industry. More than 30 million people (around 30 percent of South Korea's population) are registered for online gaming. The country also hosts the annual "World Cyber Games," which, according to the WCG Web site, is "a global tournament in which sport is conducted within the medium of cyberspace, also known as e-sports." It's essentially like the Olympics, except instead of years of physical training for certain events, it's a bunch of computer nerds competing against each other in various video games. And I'm sure they're in comfy computer chairs and temperature controlled rooms.
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Jake Tessington
posted 10/05/07 @ 11:38 PM CST
Very nice writing. Writer brought humor to a sad situation and didn't overdo it.
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