Gamer's death sparks concern in S.Korea (AP) Updated: 2005-08-26 10:29
SEOUL, South Korea - Keyboard and mouse in hand, he battled until nearly his
last breath. The death of Lee, a 28-year-old man identified only by his last
name who passed away earlier this month after nearly 50 straight hours of
playing online computer games, has South Korea concerned about the health of the
millions of gamers in the world's most wired country.
A South Korean man
who played computer games for 50 hours almost non-stop died of heart
failure minutes after finishing his mammoth session in an Internet cafe.
The 28-year-old man, identified only by his family name Lee, had been
playing on-line battle simulation games at the cybercafe in the
southeastern city of Taegu, police said. Players compete at the World
Cyber Games (WCG) 2004 in San Francisco, the world's largest video game
festival with top gamers competing for over $400,000 in prizes.
[Reuters] |
Many of South Korea's 17 million gamers regularly stroll into Internet cafes,
the $1-per-hour hangout popular among young South Koreans, and camp out in front
of monitors to play for hours �� and even sometimes days or longer.
"I've seen people who play games for months, just briefly going home for a
change of clothing, taking care of all their eating and sleeping here," said Jun
Mung-gyu, 27, who runs an Internet cafe in southeastern Seoul.
More than 70 percent of South Korea's population of 48 million uses the
Internet, and the country has the highest per-capita rate of broadband
connections in the world. With all that access has come the rising problem of
Internet addiction.
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