For years, video games have been criticized for promoting violent behavior in players
of all ages, but pre-dominantly young ones.
While all media can easily be to blame for inspiring impressionable individuals to act
in reckless ways, some games have gotten a lot of heat for their content.
While it’s unfair to correlate certain titles to all violent behavior in kids who like video
games, the ones that we explore on this list have actually be the catalyst for the deaths
of various people over the years.
Here’s our list of the top 10 video games that caused deaths.
10 Diablo 3 A teenager, who was only identified in the
press by his first name, Chuang, died in Taiwan after playing Diablo 3 for 40 hours straight
at an internet café back in 2012.
Chuang had booked out a private room at the café and reportedly did not eat at all over
the course of his marathon.
An employee of the café found him ‘resting’ on the table in the room and managed to wake
him up.
Chuang stood, took a few steps, then collapsed to the ground.
Reports were that he suffered from a blood clot due to sitting for too long.
The devs behind Diablo 3, Blizzard, made a statement concerning the 18 year old’s death,
saying, “We’re saddened to hear this news, and our thoughts are with his family and friends
during this difficult time.
We don’t feel it would be appropriate for us to comment further without knowing all
of the circumstances involved.
While we recognize that it’s ultimately up to each individual or their parent or guardian
to determine playing habits, we feel that moderation is clearly important, and that
a person’s day-to-day life should take precedence over any form of entertainment.”
9 War of Tanks A 35 year old man named Brian Vigneault, also
known as Poshybird, partook in a 24 hour gaming marathon of World of Tanks as part of a charity
event to raise money for the Make-A-Wish foundation in Virginia Beach.
But 22 hours into the marathon, Brian, who was well-known for playing the game on Twitch,
decided to go for a smoke break.
He didn’t return, and emergency vehicles arrived at his house at 7:50pm after someone
called 911; Brian had a heart attack outside of his house, and later died.
According to those watching the stream, Brian had consumed Red Bull, five-hour energy drinks
and coffee in the duration of his marathon, and had looked in rough condition towards
the end of his stream.
8 Wii Fit Wii Fit is supposed to help you achieve a
healthier lifestyle.
But the opposite actually happened with one user, named Tim Eves.
A 25 year old scout leader, he was jogging with the Wii Fit and dropped dead before even
making it to the hospital.
Eves was apparently a healthy individual with no prior health problems, which led to suspicion
that he had a rare heart disorder, and that perhaps while using his Wii Fit he was so
invested in the game that he ignored any symptoms he may have been experiencing.
7 GTA IV Grand Theft Auto 4 has been the focus of several
controversies over the years.
The franchise itself has often been the target of more conservative media when it comes to
placing blame for influencing younger demographics and inspiring violent behavior.
The game has been cited as an influence for various crimes, including a crime spree in
New Hyde Park, New York, and the murder of a taxi driver in Bangkok, Thailand, with the
perpetrator in the latter stating that they wanted to find out if it was as easy in real
life to rob a taxi as it was in the game.
But perhaps the worst case was in August of 2013, in which a 90 year old woman in Slaughter,
Louisiana was killed by her eight year old grandson who had shot her in the head after
playing the game.
Rockstar has been forced to respond to many of these cases, and campaigning and petitioning
against it, often responding that the game is meant for a mature audience that are smart
enough to understand the game’s content.
6 Starcraft Lee Seung Seop, a man from South Korea, had
a pretty intense addiction to Starcraft.
In 2005, he began devoting all of his time to it, causing him to lose his job as an industrial
boiler repair man, and his girlfriend.
People began to notice that he was always sleep deprived, and becoming malnourished.
After a 50 hour Starcraft binge, he would also lose his life.
According to reports, Lee had told his loved ones that he was about to head home when he
closed his eyes and slid off his chair.
His cause of death was heart failure caused by exhaustion and dehydration.
5 FarmVille For a long time, FarmVille was the gaming
obsession of many an individual.
A farming simulation social network game originally released in 2009 in Facebook, it’s since
fallen from glory, going from its peak of 34.5 million daily active users, down to the
110th most popular facebook game in 2016.
But for a long time, plenty of users were addicted, including 22 year old Alexandra
Tobias, who in 2010, killed her three year old son over the game.
While she was playing, her son, who was hungry, started to cry.
Annoyed, she shook him, inflicting head injuries to the child that ultimately killed him.
She was sentenced to 50 years in prison.
4 Halo 3 In Ohio, a 17 year old teenager by the name
of Daniel Petric murdered his mother and shot his father over Halo 3.
After his parents had taken the game away from him, he plotted to murder them, after
retrieving the key to his father’s lock box where he stored a 9mm handgun, along with
the copy of the game they had confiscated from him.
Petric reportedly told his parents, “Would you close your eyes?
I have a surprise for you”, and then shot both of them in the head.
His mother Susan died, and his father Mark managed to survive.
Petric then fled the scene with the copy of Halo 3.
In his trial for the crime, the judge overseeing it, noted that he firmly believed that Daniel,
being utterly obsessed with the game, had no idea at the time that if he killed his
parents they would be dead forever.
3 Legends of Mir III This has to be one of the craziest motives
for murder I’ve ever heard.
A man in Shanghai named Qui Chengwei who played Legends of Mir III killed another player named
Zhu Caoyuan in real life after in the game he had lent Caoyuan a powerful dragon sabre.
Caoyuan had turned around and sold the weapon, which Chengwei was furious over.
Caoyuan said he would give Chengwei the money from the sale, but after he failed to do so,
Chengwei went to the police.
The police refused to do anything since the theft was virtual and not real property.
Chengwei took matters into his own hands and stabbed Caoyuan in the heart with great force.
China has no laws when it comes to the theft of virtual in-game items, unlike places like
South Korea, whose police actually have a force that investigates in-game thefts.
2 Prius Online This one is tragically ironic.
So in Seoul, a South Korean couple were arrested for starving their three month old premature
daughter to death, all because they were devoting their time to raising an online baby.
Yep.
According to a police officer working the case, “the couple seemed to have lost their
will to live a normal life, because they didn’t have jobs and gave birth to a premature baby.”
They would spend their days at an internet café, 12 hour stretches at a time, playing
Primus Online, where they were raising a virtual girl they named Anima.
They would only feed their real daughter once a day in between those stretches of playing.
According to professor Kwak Dae-Kyung of Seoul Dongguk University, the couple had lost track
of reality, stating, “online game addiction can blur the line between reality and the
virtual world.
It seems that taking care of their online game character erased any sense of guilt they
may have had for neglecting their daughter.”
1 Berzerk The two deaths caused by arcade game Berzerk
are considered the very first account of video game related deaths to ever occur.
Whether or not that’s entirely accurate, the stories are still very chilling to say
the least, and often tend to get draped In urban legends about the game’s antagonist
Evil Otto.
But, here are the facts.
In 1982, a man named Peter Burkowski in Calumet City, Illinois, and made the Berzerk top ten
list twice within a space of 15 minutes.
Seconds after entering his name next to his high score he dropped died of a heart attack.
He was only 18 years old.
The second case occurred in Virginia to another young man named Jeff Dailey who had died after
reaching a high score of over 16,000, also dying of cardiac arrest, although some have
claimed that Dailey’s death is an urban legend riffing off of the Burkowski tragedy.
There we have it friends!
Have you ever played a game for so long you felt you were going to be ill?
Gotta take care of yourselves when you play, people!
Eating and drinking and fresh air; kind of essential, ain’t it?
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