Man Dies After Playing Computer Games for 27 Days in a Row

Every so often reports surface of computer gamers who sit glued to their screens for so long it ends in their real-life death, but today’s Global Times reports a fatal gaming marathon impressive even by the standards of chronic gaming addiction. According to the article, “A 33-year-old man died Monday after playing online games at an Internet café for 27 days in a row, during which time he barely ate or slept.”

27 days!? That’s nearly 650 hours. If the report is true the man must have had amazing stamina. Back in 2007 a 26 year-old man in Liaoning province up in Dongbei dropped dead after gaming for 15 days straight, while a South Korean man aged 28 died in 2005 after 50 hours, or just over two days, in front of a computer playing Starcraft.

The Global Times states that Monday’s death occurred after the man was taken to a clinic after fainting in front of a computer in an “unlicensed Internet café in Cuigezhuang township, Chaoyang district.”

The man reportedly “Barely ate, drank or slept during the three days leading up to his death … [and had]… Eaten nothing but instant noodles for the duration of his gaming marathon.”

Even aside from other factors, four weeks of an instant noodle only diet would be enough to kill anyone.