China man dies after three-day Internet session

China man dies after three-day Internet session

news.yahoo.com

A Chinese man dropped dead after playing Internet games for three consecutive days, state media said on Monday as China seeks to wean Internet addicts offline.
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The man from the southern boomtown of Guangzhou, aged about 30, died on Saturday after being rushed to the hospital from the Internet cafe, local authorities were quoted by the Beijing News as saying.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well it will be interesting to find out what game he was playing. This guy was only 30 years old by the way.

news.yahoo.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

What I'm more interested in is why they feel the need to do such long binges of gaming. There have been a number of similar deaths in China and North Korea in the past couple of years. This is a trend that suggests that either they need more escapism, or they just have nothing better to do.

TheBorg

This is far from the first time this has happened...
It was problematic enough for certain Asian countries to implement laws for ISPs to implement a feature that automatically cause disconnects after a fixed amount of time.

I even observed people (North American people) spending near suicidal amounts of time log into a Never Winter Nights server that I was running (in once extreme case, I banned a player for 6 hours because I was worried about him).

But what I find most disturbing about your post is the use of the term "China Man". To me, this is a near racial slur. Why did you not say "A Chinese Man"?

Originally posted by TheBorg
What I'm more interested in is why they feel the need to do such long binges of gaming. There have been a number of similar deaths in China and North Korea in the past couple of years. This is a trend that suggests that either they need more escapism, or they just have nothing better to do.

TheBorg

That would be South Korea. North Koreans tend not to have more than one radio station, let alone access to the internet.

Although, i do agree with you asking why it is a phenomenon seen in the Far East.

After all, I love my games too, but I wouldn't either have the chance or the will to sit and play for 30+ hours straight.

I've done 12-18 hours in a day, but that was with breaks for food, fags and beer, and it was on a day off too. I have a job, a girlfriend and sprogs, so I would never be able to get that much time in.

Originally posted by TheBorg
What I'm more interested in is why they feel the need to do such long binges of gaming.

In order to understand that, you have to understand a bit about the culture.
Public life in many Asian countries is SO ridged and constrained that escapism becomes more important than "life", especially if you are not... shall we say, "popular".

Game skills are also much more respected there than they are here. Skilled gamers get the same level of respect as athletes. For a large number of people (especially young males) in these places, it's about the only real respect they feel they can earn.

It's very hard to explain. I have a rough understanding because I lived in Seoul for awhile and was deeply immersed in the culture. It was very strange playing a round of Quake in the company office and having 6 very attractive lasses surrounding me, jumping up and down all excited like I was some sort of sport start making an over the top play. Even the boss was looking on proudly like he's got himself a star as I shot the hell out of the rest of his staff (I'd been playing for months, the game hadn't been released there yet, I had an unfair advantage ).

Like I say, strange.

Also, remember that in most of these countries drug use is all but unheard of. The penalty for selling drugs is often execution. Here, we have drug deaths which are brought about much the same way. They spend so long high that they forget to drink or eat and become so fatigued by the over stimulation that they just keel over.

Did you know that the majority of drug deaths isn't from "overdose", but from dehydration?

Sorta the same thing.
Kinda.

Originally posted by BitRaiser
But what I find most disturbing about your post is the use of the term "China Man". To me, this is a near racial slur. Why did you not say "A Chinese Man"?

I don't think it's a slur. Let me explain. In my country, a Chinese is someone of Chinese ethnicity. He can be from Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, whatever. A China man is a guy from China. Make sense?

At any rate, they don't seem to mind it. In Malaysia, they're even called Cina China, which means "Chinese from China". Pretty confusing, huh?

Your other points in this thread are all spot-on. Well done