From what I can make of it...
...It seems to be a trend?
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Games binge ends in death
Computer games addict dies after playing nonstop for 86 hours
Nick Farrell, vnunet.com 10 Oct 2002
A South Korean games addict died after playing nonstop for 86 hours.
According to the Syney Morning Herald the 24-year-old man, identified by police as Kim, was found dead on Tuesday at an internet café in Kwangju.
Police said Kim had been virtually glued to the computer since for 86 hours and had not slept or eaten.
He collapsed in front of the front desk but soon regained his consciousness. He then went to the toilet where he was later found dead.
An initial investigation ruled out the possibility of murder and police believe he probably died of exhaustion.
More than half of South Korea's population of 47 million has internet access, and there are also about 22,000 cyber cafés - also known as PC rooms. Many of these PC rooms are open 24 hours.
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Second gamer dies after massive binge
Victim played for 32 hours non-stop
Nick Farrell, vnunet.com 22 Oct 2002
Just days after the first 'internet overdose', another addict has died after a marathon games binge.
The 27 year-old Taiwanese man collapsed after playing computer games for 32 hours non-stop.
Police confirmed that Lien Wen-cheng started playing at the cyber cafe in Fengyuan in central Taiwan at 10.30pm on Thursday.
At 7am on Saturday, a staff member found the man on the floor of the cafe's toilet foaming at the mouth and bleeding from the nose. "They rushed him to hospital but he was already dead," local police said.
A police spokesman stated that doctors believe Wen-cheng died from exhaustion, having remained in the same position for too long. The death highlights the danger of such intensive game-playing.
Less than 10 days ago, a 24 year-old South Korean man died at an internet cafe in Kwangju, 260km outside Seoul, after playing continuously for 86 hours.
Psychologist Peter Watson explained that playing games over prolonged periods without sleep places the body under considerable stress.
"Depending on the game, the brain is receiving [the impression] that it is constantly under attack," he said.
"We would not expect hardened soldiers to cope with a 32-hour fire fight, and yet some people think they can play these games constantly for long periods of time."
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Boy dies of stroke after playing computer games for 12 hours non stop
20.06.2005
Computer games launched the development of the brain pathology, which the boy was suffering from, having thus provoked stroke
A teenager died in the Russian city of Ekaterinburg after 12 hours of playing computer games. The boy died from stroke after he had spent a half of his day playing games in a computer club. Doctors were taking lifesaving efforts for several days, but could not save the boy. The autopsy showed that the brain of a young gamer was totally destroyed.
According to the information from the press service of the city's healthcare administration, the tragedy occurred last week. The boy stayed in the game club longer than safety regulations allowed. When the boy returned home, he showed quite inadequate behavior, which made his mother call an ambulance. The boy was hospitalized, stayed in the reanimation department for seven weeks and died. Doctors concluded that computer games launched the development of the brain pathology, which the boy was suffering from, having thus provoked stroke.
Doctors of the city hospital say that they start receiving information about computer game addiction developing among teenagers on a regular basis. According to sociological research, up to 80 percent of schoolchildren of 12-13 years of age suffer from addiction to computers in Russia. Children may spend whole days sitting in front of computers without food, water and rest.
Children's addiction to computer games in Western states gradually takes the scale of alcohol and drug addiction. Such children are excessively short-tempered, irascible and emotionally unstable. They always experience a dire need of playing computer games, although they realize practical uselessness of such pastime. As a result, computer addicts suffer from inner contradictions between the real and the virtual egos.
Doctors say that serious addiction to computer games negatively affects both physical and intellectual development of children, causing depressions and psychological disorders.
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Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
Man Dies After Playing Games For 2 Days
by Shawn @ 3:55 pm · filed under Tech Stuff, Games, Weird Stuff
A South Korean man (identified as "Lee") died of heart failure stemming from exhaustion after playing an online video game for 50 hours.
Lee thought it would be a good idea to quit his job so he could have more time to play video games, which by the way, doesn't seem like a solid plan for your life if you ask me. I'm not much of a gamer myself, but for everyone else thinking they need to quit your job so you can have more gaming time, maybe you should think twice... because gaming KILLS.
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Chinese gamer dies after 15-day session
2 March 2007 08:26AM
Nothing else to do during Lunar New Year holiday...
An overweight 26 year-old man from north-eastern China has died after a ceaseless gaming session over the Lunar New Year holiday.
Chinese state media reported that Xu Yan, a local teacher from Jinzhou, in Liaoning province, collapsed on Saturday after spending almost 15 days playing online games.
According to his parents, Xu found the holiday boring as all the markets and other businesses were closed, leaving only the TV and computer as entertainment.
As vnunet.com reported last week, the Chinese government is very worried about the apparent problems with internet addiction among teenagers and young adults in the country.
Surveys released by state media suggest that 2.6 million, almost 14 percent, of teenage Internet users are classed as addicts.
The authorities have been introducing sweeping measures to help combat the problem.
These include banning teenagers from cyber-cafés, limiting online gaming sessions, and even boot camp-style military training, psychological counselling and electrocution.
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Man Dies After 3-day Internet Gaming Binge
September 20, 2007 08:58 AM
By Associated Press
BEIJING - A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday.
The 30-year-old man fainted at a cybercafe in the city of Guangzhou on Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported.
Paramedics tried to revive him but failed and he was declared dead at the cafe, it said. The paper said that he may have died from exhaustion brought on by too many hours on the Internet. The report did not say what the man, whose name was not given, was playing.
The report said that about 100 other Web surfers "left the cafe in fear after witnessing the man's death."
China has 140 million Internet users, second only to the United States. It is one of the world's biggest markets for online games, with tens of millions of players, many of whom hunker down for hours in front of PCs in public Internet cafes.
Several cities have clinics to treat what psychiatrists have dubbed "Internet addiction" in users, many of them children and teenagers, who play online games or surf the Web for days at a time.
