…the fact that some people check their brains at the door is blamed on gaming, and it’s WoW’s turn this time.
…a young boy of 15 was taken to the hospital after collapsing while playing Wrath of the Lich King. He reportedly had played the game for fifteen hours straight, and because he’d only gotten two hours of sleep and had almost nothing to eat the entire time, felt cramps and apparently collapsed from exhaustion.
Other “news” sites are picking it up and getting thier kicks in:
He has taken it upon himself to warn parents of the other boys about the dangers of extended game playing.
?They also think the boys need to reduce the amount of time they play and will themselves be more vigilant,? said the father.
Officials from the Game Over treatment centre in Link?ping in central Sweden have noticed a spike in calls from concerned parents since the release of the latest World of Warcraft installment, Wrath of the Lich King.
?It?s been a huge problem. We have parents who call everyday and ask,? said Game Over?s Emilie Backlund to the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.
She has seen a steady rise in computer game addiction, with most cases stemming from those playing online fantasy games such as World of Warcraft and Counter Strike.
?And it?s not only a problem for young people. Adults have also contacted us and it really doesn?t matter how old you are,? Backlund told SvD.
…buuut apparently it’s gaming’s fault, and much like marathons must be stopped immediately to stop the tide of carnage. We all know that addressing these dangers will completely solve human stupidity 
D out.
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November 18th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I play for 15 hours straight also, I just make sure to drink lots of Vodka and Red Bull. That kid was obviously doing it wrong
November 18th, 2008 at 10:44 am
What’s this world coming to if a kid can’t play a game for 15 hours straight without collapsing? The upcoming generation of gamers are a bunch of lazy slouches with no stamina. Yes, I said “stamina” gaming is tough on the body! All that key pressing and mouse clicking.
The kid clearly needs a trainer to chant at him, “Eat those Doritos! Drink that Mountain Dew! Play! Play! Doritos! Dew! Play! PLAY!”
November 18th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Yeah…kids these days are just weak. Weak I tell you!!
November 18th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Does anyone remember Jurassic Park for Super Nintendo? That game had NO SAVE FEATURE! You basically had to marathon it to finish it or leave your console on overnight!
Anyway, you gotta get to ‘em young I say. Most parents let the TV, console, or PC babysit their children these days, which can have some pretty negative results. One set of parents up here in Canada had the gall to take away their 15-year old’s XBox because he was playing too much CoD. What did he do? He ran away from home, was missing for over a week, and was eventually found dead after having fallen out of a tree many kilometers away from his residence.
I don’t want to come across as insensitive but I find it ironic that the kid was probably some ultra-awesome survivalist in CoD yet couldn’t even survive RL.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:36 am
I love how this is always portrayed as a gaming problem. What kind of parents would allow their kid to play a video game for 15 hours without eating or sleeping. Lord… I don’t even have kids and I know that is insane.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:36 am
If he’d collapsed in the library after spending 15 hours straight reading “Ulysses,” would the indecipherablity of the works of James Joyce come under fire in the media? There would be no headlines like, “Joe Hynes Never Paid, But James Joyce Must!”
I didn’t see a lot of critical words about parenting skills either. It was just that demon game that came into their home and tried to take their child from them.
@Snafzag: I knew a guy at Apple who used his sabbatical to bear Super Mario on the SNES. No save, of course, so he left the game running for a couple of weeks in his den, just pausing when he needed to step away, but never turning the game off.
That’s it! That is the evil of these games! No was to pause! Hah!
November 18th, 2008 at 11:47 am
That should be “beat” Super Mario. The bear must have snuck in from The Shadow Odyssey.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:52 am
And let’s not forget the training required to learn ‘poop-socking’! — you can blame Logan Decker of PC Gamer for that little gem
———–
Seriously though, what do these parents really expect? If they’re going to let a kid learn life’s lessons from a video game (because they’re too lazy/busy/uninterested in raising them themselves or are more afraid of losing a “friend” than parenting a child) and then suddenly take their only source of parenting from them what else will these kids do besides go absolutely spastic? What parent lets their kid go 15 hours straight without even a proper break for sleep or food?
November 18th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Ulysses. Bah. In my day, you weren’t a man unless you got through Finnegan’s Wake in a sitting. And thankful.
Now you kids get the hell off my lawn.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:35 pm
/pulls mask off of potshot
“Old Man Withers!!”
November 18th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
And he’d have pulled off his caper too, if it hadn’t been for you meddling kids!
Heck, I was out of my depth with A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
December 5th, 2008 at 3:22 am
it’s not just parents and/or the game itself, it’s this generation. I’m a gamer myself and have found out that it is easier to exist inside these online games than to exist in reality. There are some things that we consider that might be the parent’s fault but u cannot blame them to allow such things because they would rather have the kid playing those games in their home and seeing than their kid going out somewhere and doing something else. But of course, there should be a limit. I have stopped playing online games because it gives me the creeps that i can actually feel that I AM that digital avatar, and that’s what the kid probably felt. In Korea some kids actually beaten up a gamer because he latter had “stolen” his weapon. This generation is crazy, and we are all going to burn in hell, whether it be online or in this “real world”. Nice thing to mention james joyce so i think let’s include nietzshe and foucault in the discussion? Or even karl marx and lenin for that matter. haha.