Gamer dies after playing Diablo III for 40 hours

[Rii]

Not really, no.

[Drake Sigar]

Oh dear, and I had you pegged as one of the thoughtful folk around here, Drake.

Hey I don't expect you to give up everything, a lot of everyday stuff in our houses are probably suspect. However if you believe strongly enough, you should be willing to give up something. I didn't buy Diablo III, and I don't own a tablet or indeed any hand-held device apart from a very cheap mobile phone. Not buying something is one of the easiest forms of disapproval. It's the bare minimum. And it'll give you a leg to stand on when you get up on the soapbox.

Will it make any difference? No. But then, that's not really the point.

[sabrage]

Rather what I did offered was the opportunity for various folk here to show their true colours and this they have now done quite sufficiently, I think.

Oh, the shame! We look so bad now. You got us.

[Hypernetic]

, but it has become increasingly apparent that there are few on this forum whom I have not as yet transcended,

You might want to see a doctor about that.

[gwathdring]

The motivated myopia that refuses to see Blizzard's hand in what happened to this kid is of precisely the same nature as that which refuses to see the hand of American foreign policy in 9/11, which refuses to see the role of the state in creating the criminals which it would destroy (and hence is incapable of perceiving why 'the land of the free' locks up a greater proportion of its citizens -- and spends a greater proportion of its energies doing so -- than any other nation on earth), which refuses to acknowledge all the direct and indirect, proximate and distant effects of one's actions, which instead treats every tragedy as either a 'natural disaster' to be ignored or the result of some elemental evil to be vanquished in a modern heretic-burning ceremony. The great delusion of the 18th century -- that man is a (rational) island -- continues to inflict harm wherever it is felt, increasing according to the distance from the techno-economic climate in which it originated.

I think those are two very distinct myopias. But perhaps that's simply becasue I don't see Blizzard as at fault here. I recognize that the game is designed to reward play skinner-box style. But the statistical insignificance of this event is, I feel, enough to absolve them of explicit crime. Are there things they could do to strike a better balance between compulsive gameplay and engaging gameplay? Maybe. That's a more interesting question we could discuss in my opinion. Where is the line between compulsive and engaging games? How much does it vary among different players (a lot)? What are some design changes that could be made to fix some of the games that lean too much towards compulsive/addictive?

I just don't think illegal wars and the overthrowing of foreign democracies can be placed on a remotely similar footing with ... making a compulsive game. That one man played for 40 hours while also neglecting his own life.

[Moraven]

I do not understand your hatred of Blizzard over Diablo 3 when you love WoW and WoW has "destroyed" more lives than D3 has.

Or the pay to win asian MMOs, that get people hooked and force them to pay cash to succeed.

[deano2099]

I do not understand your hatred of Blizzard over Diablo 3 when you love WoW and WoW has "destroyed" more lives than D3 has.

Or the pay to win asian MMOs, that get people hooked and force them to pay cash to succeed.

Alcohol is more dangerous than mushrooms and marijuana but plenty of people fully supporting keeping the latter illegal while going out "on the piss" every weekend. People are good at cognitive dissonance.

[Cooper]

The motivated myopia that refuses to see Blizzard's hand in what happened to this kid is of precisely the same nature as that which refuses to see the hand of American foreign policy in 9/11, which refuses to see the role of the state in creating the criminals which it would destroy (and hence is incapable of perceiving why 'the land of the free' locks up a greater proportion of its citizens -- and spends a greater proportion of its energies doing so -- than any other nation on earth), which refuses to acknowledge all the direct and indirect, proximate and distant effects of one's actions, which instead treats every tragedy as either a 'natural disaster' to be ignored or the result of some elemental evil to be vanquished in a modern heretic-burning ceremony. The great delusion of the 18th century -- that man is a (rational) island -- continues to inflict harm wherever it is felt, increasing according to the distance from the techno-economic climate in which it originated.

You seem to want it both ways.

You cannot deconstruct the rational atmomistic individual by exposing a distributed agency without also deconstructing the principles of responsibility and fault.

We predicate responsibility for action and fault of action in the hands of the self-same rationalist individual (or rationalist captialist company) you want to deny.

The complexities of distributed agency that would highlight the impact of US foriegn policy in the events of 9.11 as would also highlight the impact of Blizzard's chosen design functions for Diablo are also the complexities of action that make pointing fingers and portioning blame in the classic sense an effort in futility.

[John]

I found it horrible the first time I read it on gamespot. Just made me think more on my health. And try to avoid unnecessary long gaming periods. Remember to drink, eat and stretch, I think that goes along way. Personally I've done a few long sessions of gaming, 32 to 36 hours. It really takes a toll on your body, at some point you will start to feel weak, especially in the legs for sitting in the same place for a long time. Personally I won't probably ever again do long sessions, just go to sleep for 5-6 hours if you really need to play long sessions.

[Nalano]

Instead of bothering us, can't you just change your Facebook profile picture in the name of spreading awareness like everyone else who wants to acknowledge a problem exists without doing a damn thing about it?

It will be a long time before I tire of this picture.

[Drake Sigar]

I found it horrible the first time I read it on gamespot. Just made me think more on my health. And try to avoid unnecessary long gaming periods. Remember to drink

And make sure it's not an energy drink. Downing that stuff long term when you're doing nothing more strenuous than clicking a mouse button has got to be freakin' dangerous.

[Anthile]

I still wonder how that even happened. I mean, I have been awake for several days at a time more than once but even if I did something I thought was important, I'd still eat and drink; and even if you wouldn't do that, wouldn't you fall unconscious long before you die? I just have a hard time believing that a neurotypical person could do something for 40 hours without a break. Without further information it's of course very hard to diagnose anything but it's hardly a poor fool mind-controlled by the evil megacorp.

[TE_owner]

Isn't this just natural selection, evolution designed to take those who can't (or in this case are to stupid) to survive out of the gene pool.

[jnx]

I still wonder how that even happened. I mean, I have been awake for several days at a time more than once but even if I did something I thought was important, I'd still eat and drink; and even if you wouldn't do that, wouldn't you fall unconscious long before you die? I just have a hard time believing that a neurotypical person could do something for 40 hours without a break. Without further information it's of course very hard to diagnose anything but it's hardly a poor fool mind-controlled by the evil megacorp.

Whenever someone dies "of gaming" it's obvious that there's years of health neglect behind it. It's just that "unhealthy man dies to seriously harmful lifestyle after several years" doesn't really make the headlines.

[SirKicksalot]

I still wonder how that even happened. I mean, I have been awake for several days at a time more than once but even if I did something I thought was important, I'd still eat and drink; and even if you wouldn't do that, wouldn't you fall unconscious long before you die? I just have a hard time believing that a neurotypical person could do something for 40 hours without a break. Without further information it's of course very hard to diagnose anything but it's hardly a poor fool mind-controlled by the evil megacorp.

Stress hormones + no food + sitting down in the same position = heart attack.