6 Dumb Ways to Die: Gamer Edition

Everyone knows the silly song, “Dumb Ways to Die”. Unfortunately, countless moronic deaths happen across the world almost every day. Some have the privilege of passing quietly into the night, their embarrassments hidden away forever. For many others, their idiotic deaths will provide the internet with laughter for years to come. Here are:

6 Dumb Ways to Die: Gamer Edition

1. Intense Gaming + 50 Hours = Game Over; StarCraft

Professional gamers can win quite the pretty penny for winning in the big leagues and, in South Korea, gaming is a really big deal. StarCraft is one of the big games and since winnings can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars for winners of the annual SC Tournament, it’s also very competitive. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that some gamers might take their ‘practice’ a little bit too seriously.

One man, identified only as Lee, went to an internet café in Daegu to play. He spent the next three days practically glued to the chair – apparently the only way to get him off the chair was for very quick toilet breaks or snap-naps.

Unfortunately for Lee, the human body isn’t quite as hardy as a StarCraft marine’s. After fifty hours of intense gaming, Lee’s family finally found him at the café. Several pleas later, and he finally agreed to go home – as soon as he finished one last game.

It proved to be one game to many.

A few minutes later, Lee keeled over – his heart had failed from dehydration and exhaustion. That’s one Game Over he’s not coming back from.

2. I’m Fine, Really; World of Warcraft

Not too long ago, Blizzard made it possible to buy subscriptions for World of Warcraft by using in-game gold. As one can expect, that drove a few players to push just a little harder – and one particular gamer to push too hard.

The player, Wu Tai, went to an internet café to play World of Warcraft. He sat down and didn’t stop playing for nineteen hours straight. His marathon was interrupted by a coughing fit, and his buddies saw him dabbing away blood from his mouth. They told him to go to a hospital, he told them he was fine and went right back to gaming.

Despite his objection, they called the ambulance anyway. It didn’t get there in time – before the ambulance could get there, Wu Tai died. Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t get to reload and do the smart thing – like going to the hospital instead of playing himself to death.

3. Going to Gaming Heaven; Warcraft III

This one is a bit of a sad story, and at least partially to blame on the ingenuity of parents who would buy a T-13 game for an 11-year-old boy. Two years later, a now thirteen-year-old Zhang Xiaoyi played a 36-hour marathon of Warcraft III.

Not that this is anything too remarkable. There are many young gamers in the world – and some are ridiculously good at what they do. But young Xiaoyi was a little too into the game; he adored Lungdian, the Angel of Revenge, and the Sentinel.

For Xiaoyi, real life soon began to pale against in-game life. Far better to become one of his heroes in the game world. So, in 2004, Xiaoyi went up a tall building and jumped off. His suicide note told his parents that he was off to join the “heroes he worshipped” in gaming heaven.

A scholar of internet addiction has gathered several families, including Xiaoyi’s, to sue Blizzard for the deaths of their children – because, naturally, you can’t blame the parents for not noticing their son believes the afterlife is Warcraft.

4. Look Both Ways; Google Ingress

If you’re not familiar with the app-gaming sensation that is Pokemon GO, you’ve been living under a rock. If you don’t know about Google Ingress… well, that’s not too surprising. It began as an invitation only game that now has millions of players. One of those players was Gabriel Cavalcante Carneiro Leao.

The 16-year-old Leao was playing Ingress on his phone – a game that involves claiming portals to have your faction control the world. To get to these portals you have to walk around and find them in real life.

The day after Leao got the game, he was having a brief chat with his mother when he picked up on a portal close by. He was so excited he cut the conversation short, and set off. So excited, in fact, that he rushed right across the road. The game failed to take into account the oncoming bus, giving young Gabriel the final Game over.

When they finally got his body out from under the bus, he still had the phone in his hand – portal unclaimed.

5. Double Down Death; DotA

Boredom is a terrible thing; when you’ve got a leg broken, there’s not much you can do, lack of mobility taken into account. One 17-year-old kid, known as Rustam, found himself in just that situation – broken leg and bored out of his skull. So, to get rid of his boredom, he started playing his favourite game, Defence of the Ancients.

For the next twenty-two days, barring brief – and blissfully silent – naps in between, Rustam did nothing but play DotA. His parents were constantly aware of him banging away on his keyboard, until he fell suspiciously silent.

Turns out that Rustam didn’t move at all. His lack of movement resulted in Thrombosis – the formation of a blood clot. The combination of lack of movement, as well as the existing injury caused the clot - and the death that followed.

The time of death is estimated to be right around the time Rustam’s avatar was killed – how’s that for poetic irony?

6. Virtual Daughter Trumps Baby Girl; Prius Online

Sometimes really romantic things happen – like two gamers meeting in a chat site, bonding over games, and getting hitched. They even have a lovely baby girl, called Sarang – “love” in Korean. Even though she was born prematurely, it seemed like such a perfect love story.

Unfortunately, real life can’t quite compete with virtual life for some people. The lovely couple started playing a game called Prius Online – like Second Life, they could live out an entire virtual life online. Then came their crowning moment – they had a beautiful virtual baby girl, Anima.

Anima demanded a lot more attention than her real life sister, and while mummy and daddy dearest went on all night gaming binges, little Sarang wasted away. That is, until the sorry excuses for parents finally arrived home to find that Sarang had starved to death.

As further evidence of the father’s callous idiocy, we present exhibit A, “she was a premature baby from the beginning… I am sorry for what I did and hope that my daughter does not suffer any more in heaven."

Yes, nicely done dad. Maybe if they’d paid more attention to their real daughter, she wouldn’t have needed to suffer to start with.

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