The Lunar New Year is the most important holiday in Chinese tradition. Globally, it stirs a mass-migration of Chinese who return to their families to celebrate the New Year.

However, this holiday season was marked by tragedy with the death of a 26 year old man who died alone in his home. Apparently the man was engaged in a week-long online gaming marathon, during which he passed out and never regained consciousness.

The man, who was only identified by his gaming alias “Zhang,” is what China has come to classify 2.6 million of its 20 million under-18 youth: gaming addicts. Though Zhang’s death was attributed to his 330 pound obesity, we feel this, too, is more than likely linked to his gaming habit.

Sadly, Zhang is far from the first gamer to die; another gamer was pronounced dead after a 50-hour-long gaming session he engaged in at a video cafe.

In a much worse case, a distressed gamer stabbed a fellow player to whom he lent one of his online swords; that player sold the sword in question for 7,200 Yuan. The gamer contacted police to regain possession of his sword, but because there are no virtual property laws in place, the gamer had no case against the offender.

The stabbed gamer died, and the sword lender was sentenced to a suspended death sentence, although he may gain parole after 15 years of good behavior.

China is racing to address this rapidly-growing addiction; they are trying to help the addicted in question through rehab clinics (where counseling and electro-shock therapy are used in conjunction) and a controversial new system that will limit gamers online time to 3 hours.

The majority of gamers in China invest their time in MMORPGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games), in which they can create upgradeable characters and interact with thousands of fellow gamers in a virtual world.

For those trying to break their gaming addictions (or even those that aren’t), I would point you to my mother’s sage advise: Why not go outside? There’s stuff out there, and real people too! Granted, you can’t carry your level 31 Warhammer with invulnerability to fire and magic, but you could gather a party and make a quest for McDonald’s, or something.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 at 2:29 pm under Internet.

Read more entries by Triston McIntyre.
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