Do you consider yourself to be a passionate gamer? Do you put off real-life tasks to dive into your favorite virtual world? Well these guys take gaming passion to a whole new level, and beyond, and then a bit further before they tumble down a cliff into a pool of pure stupid and get consumed by a giant fish of stupidity.
Firstly we take a look at a recent British guy, Thomas Frongillo, that was arrested and pleaded guilty to threatening to “shoot up his school” while playing an unnamed Jagex game. Outside of the actions of other players I can understand how a King Black Dragon run gone bad could bring that kind of frustration but still, there has to be a serious amount of passion to make such a threat.
As if threatening to kill off your school friends isn’t bad enough, it gets worse. A young 19yr old man from the Zhejiang province in China was recently arrested after he was caught selling Methamphetamine to fund an MMO habit. The young man was approached in an internet cafe where an individual offered to give him a cut if he sold the dangerous substance. To make matters worse the criminal was caught and could face the death penalty based on current Chinese laws. All of this just so that he could buy new weapons and armor in his favorite MMO game. Sure, end-game raiding can be a drag but seriously?
The East appears all too often in the news when it comes to gaming passion hitting the next level. Earlier this year a 30yr old Chinese gamer died after a 3-day MMO binge. During that month he spent over $1,500 in online games and was found unconscious at a PC in a cyber cafe on the outskirts of Beijing.
South Korea 2005 a man of a similar age died after playing an MMO game for 50 hours without a single break. I cannot conjure how he managed to go to the toilet or consume any foods or liquids, but it’s a disturbing story nonetheless.
Arguably one of the most disturbing on this list was the death of a 23yr old gamer in China after playing League of Legends for an undisclosed length of time. The death was later put down to an undiagnosed heart condition but the really disturbing fact in this story is that 30 other people in the internet cafe sat with a dead guy for 9 hours and didn’t have a clue.
How do you rate your gaming passion? Would you put the lives of others before your virtual armor? I’d like to think you wouldn’t but I have to ask.