list of deaths attributed to computer or video games

This is a list of people whose deaths have been attributed to physiological symptoms brought on by, or diathesis stressed by, computer or video games by normally reliable sources.

• January 1981, 19-year-old Jeff Dailey died of a heart attack soon after posting a score of 16,660 on Berzerk. His death was reported widely in the mainstread and computer press as being linked to the game.[1]
• October 1982, at the Friar Tuck Game Room in Calumet City, Illinois, 18-year-old Peter Burkowski made the Berzerk top-ten list twice in fifteen minutes, just a few seconds before also dying of a heart attack. One newspaper headline read, "Video Game Death." Mark Allen, Lake County's deputy coroner, said that although the autopsy found unsuspected scar tissue on Peter's heart that was at least two weeks old, it's possible that the stress of the games triggered the attack in Peter's weakened heart.Video Games, October 1982, pp. 14-15
• March 2002, 21-year-old Shawn Woolley from Hudson, USA, killed himself minutes after playing Everquest. His family report him having withdrawn from life and playing the game for over twelve hours a day in the months before his death, and attributed his death to the game.[2], [3]
• October 2002, 24-year-old Kim Kyung-Jae, a resident of Kwangju, South Korea, died at a local Internet cafe (also referred to as "PC bang", pronounced "PC bahng") after a reported 86-hour gaming marathon.[4] Mr. Kim appears to be the first human being in history to die of video-game related exhaustion. According to several sources, Mr. Kim was playing NCSoft's video game Mu at the time [[5]] [[6]]
• October 2002, 27-year-old Lien Wen-Chang of Taiwan dies after a reported 32-hour video game session, 10 days after Kim Kyung-Jae. Lien Wen-Chang was found on the bathroom floor of the Internet cafe where he was playing, bleeding from his nose and foaming at the mouth. [[7]][[8]]
• August 2005, Mr Lee, a 28-year-old South Korean man, died of exhaustion in an Internet cafe after spending a solid 49 hours playing Starcraft, only 10 days after Kim Kyung-Jae's. A resident of Taegu, he seems to have collapsed after failing to eat or sleep during his marathon session. He died in hospital, of what was presumed to be a heart attack. He had been fired from his job the previous month for playing computer games when he should have been at work. [9], [10]

Deaths attributed to crimes allegedly due to emulation of, or influence by video game characters

• December 2004, in the United Kingdom, Stefan Pakeerah, a 14-year-old, was beaten to death by a friend who, it was claimed, had become obsessed with Manhunt. It turned out that the killing was drug related, and it was only the victim that owned the game.Template:citation needed
• June 2005, A couple from Inchon, South Korea, allowed their infant to die of neglect caused at least in part by their obession with World of Warcraft.[[11]]
• February 2005, Newport, Tenn. 15-year-old William Buckner and his 13-year-old stepbrother, Josh shot at Aaron Hamel and his cousin Denise "Dee Dee" Deneau, and 19-year-old Kim Bede, and her boyfriend Marc Hickman. The shooters claimed to have been influenced by the game Grand Theft Auto III.[12]

See also

• Lists of people by cause of death

External links

• Mr Lee and Starcraft
  • [13]
  • [14]
  • [15],
  • [16]
• World of Warcraft incident
  • [17]

This article contains content from Wikipedia. Current versions of the GNU FDL article List of deaths attributed to computer or video games on WP may contain information useful to the improvement of this article

WP