40 hour binge of Diablo 3 kills...

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Story.... Not eating for two days was obviously not a good choice. But kill? I doubt it.... other factors must be involved as well. Thoughts?

 

Not sure why sitting at a table and clicking a mouse for 40 hours would cause cardiac arrest, but what do I know.

 

I did hear about this story, although one difference here is that in the site I saw it reported, the gamer was 16, while this story states his age as 18. To me, that is a signficant difference. First, at 16, you'd think you wouldn't be able to enter into a contract to rent a private room at an internet cafe, and second, wouldn't his parents be curious that they hadn't seen him in two days? That aside though, while it's certainly possible to go 40 hours without eating, I find it hard to believe he didn't go to the bathroom - that's a really long time to hold it in.

 

Tragic for sure, but on a side note, is D3 really this good that players can't let go?!

 

No, it is not. I reckon this will be blamed on games. Anyone who does anything for 40h has serious issues without adding in gaming.

 

Agreed. I thought one of the store personnel found him sleeping, and then when he/she woke him up he stood and then had a sudden cardiac arrest or something.

 

If you don't eat and drink, you generally don't have to let it out either. But that would be assuming he didn't drink too much beforehand either - eating is not that much of a problem, generally speaking.

The story that he woke up, got up and then had a seizure of some sort does seem to make blot clots or perhaps a weak heart more plausible. But we don't know the circumstances, so a real conclusion is impossible. Did he have a lot of cafienated drinks to try to keep himself awake? Was he overweight or something? There can be so many influences other than him sitting behind a computer all day.

The sad thing is, if this had happened after someone had overworked himself or if he'd died when getting up out of bed or if he'd had a cardiac arrest because he was obese, the media would never have reported on it. But because it's somewhat related to gaming, it's news all of a sudden.

 

Yes it is.

 

I've survived 40 hours of almost uninterrupted stressful intellectual work on the computer, as well as multiple gaming binges around the same length (which I do not recommend to anyone, encourage or otherwise paint as I cool, in fact, I discourage and recommend against doing that, just get your sleep, be healthy, remember tomorrow is a day too) without such problems (and I seem to play Starcraft 2 better when sedated than when not) but everybody has a different system. When you cross your limits, you snap. And you don't know your limits until you cross them or come very close to. And it's almost never worth it, certainly not for a computer game or any other entertainment. Or most paid work for thtat matter. Reserve that kind of dedication for nobler causes.

 

That's more what I was getting at. Most people start getting tired after being awake for about 16-18 hours. You usually start getting really tired at around 20 hours - and for this guy he was only half way through his gaming spree. So I'm assuming that if you stay awake for 40 hours straight you are drinking something caffeinated to keep you awake. And it's not like he lives in the internet cafe - he could well have been awake for a while before he even started.

It certainly does. Blood clots can form in your legs if you are in a seated position for a long time. However, there doesn't seem to be many factors that would lead one to believe that this guy was at a high risk for developing a blood clot. When you look at the risk factors for people to develop blood clots, they are: over 50 (definitely not him) women (definitely not him), diabetic (very unlikely), heart disease (ditto), and obesity (possible).

Eighteen year old guys in even reasonable health generally don't develop blood clots. I guess he could have been diabetic or had heart disease - but like I said that's unlikely at 18 - so unless he was obese (we have no way of knowing) he wouldn't be considered at risk for a blood clot.

Yeah - don't do anything for 40 hours straight is probably good advice to live by. Of course, I can't remember ever staying up for 40 consecutive hours. On the rare occassions that I'd pull an all nighter, I was usually sleeping by the afternoon of the following day. So that's more like 30 rather than 40 straight hours.