Boy Collapses After Playing for 24-Hours Straight


Times Online reported that a 15-year-old Swedish WoW Gamer collapsed after playing the latest expansion Wrath of the Lich King for 24-hours straight.

The 15-year-old boy and his friends were playing Wrath of the Lich King when he suffered what appeared to be an epileptic seizure, it was reported today.

Follow up:

“They played all day and all night. Maybe they got a few hours of sleep. They ate a little food and breakfast at their computers,” the boy’s father told the Kvällsposten newspaper in Sweden.

Doctors told the father that his son’s bodily systems had been disrupted by a combination of sleep deprivation, lack of food, and the prolonged period of concentration playing the game.

I feel pity for the boy and his father but at the same time I don’t. The 15-year-old boy, being a teenager in this “MMORPG Age” is well, irresponsible, so does his father. However, can we blame them? I said it before, we need a dialogue between gamers and parents.

Blizzard Entertainment created Parental Controls for World of Warcraft but most parents are not aware of this feature. Parents should not expect their children to tell about that feature, do you think they will enjoy getting their gaming time limited?

Secondly, parents can limit the usage of the PC, buy some software if you have too, we are talking about your children! But, as everyone knows, especially gamers, this won’t stop them at all. They will start to lie, tell their parents they will go here and do that but in reality, they will only play the game in some other place away, heck, even buy a new account.

Those kind of things are what are needed to be discussed. The parents need to know how and what gamers think. The responsible gamers need to lecture these irresponsible gamers. We need to help each other and understanding each other is the first step.

Am I surprised with the news? Not at all, I was expecting it. I will be surprised if nothing like that happened. I used to be able to do a 48-hour marathon, I eat full meals, I take power-naps, and I take 20-minute breaks and do something else. Not because you are sitting in front of the computer does it mean you are not wasting energy, you are wasting a lot. MMORPGs like WoW requires a lot of concentration and thought processes, this drains your body and you get tired more quickly than doing laps in a track-and-field.

To those kids, EAT and SLEEP! So what if you reached the maximum level and beat the hell out of everybody if it will be the last time you will ever login to your game? Is it worth it? Not everyone can do a 24-hour marathon, and even fewer who can do a 48-hour marathon, heck, I can not even do a 24-hour marathon anymore! FYI, those of us who do or did marathons, we prepared ourselves for it, we set our minds to it, and we planned. We don’t just sit and start playing and whatever.

Blizzplanet mentioned something:

There could be measures to allow a certain amount of XP per day so that the game is played the way it was meant to be played, at a slower pace rather than skipping content by killing a plethora of mobs. If players were allowed to gain one or two levels a day, and stop any XP gains after that limit per day – a lot of people would correct their non-healthy gaming behavior.

I do not agree. This was already put into law in China and VietNam, players simply play other games, buy a new account, or do something else much more worse than their gaming addiction. It will also be bad for business, let’s face it, this is all about the money, whether we accept it or deny it.

Most if not all of those addicted to gaming, especially MMORPGs have problems. They are channeling their problems elsewhere, or they want to escape from it temporarily. For example, kids, they could be feeling lack of attention from their parents – they found that attention with playing MMORPGs. Could it be that the Swedish 15-year-old who collapsed was feeling exactly that? It is possible, the Times Online article did not touch on that issue, that possiblity, the Media only cares about “issues” and “problems” “against something”.

The world has this stereotyping disease – “you are just a kid, I am you parent/elder, you do not know anything”. That disease makes us blind to the youngsters who are going through something. Maybe it is time for us to know why kids, like the Swedish boy, are so addicted to gaming. What are his problems? Why spend more time with a virtual world than his family?

Let me ask you this, including the Media, the experts, and parents: Do you think those kids – your children, will spend more time in a virtual world if their home, their family, and relationship with their parents is good?

If your answer is yes, and your children spends more time with these online games, then now you know there is something wrong between you and your kids. Time for you (and the media) to start looking at things at the eyes of those kids, be in their shoes, understand them. They are kids for crying-out-loud! What do you expect?!

Our world is different from theirs. We all claim “we know better than you” but do we really? You were once kids, you once think like your kids. Have we forgotten those days? When your parents told you about stuff, do you 100% believed them? No, correct? Your kids are no different. And let us not forget, times has changed a lot. We have more problems today than before.

Yes, parents please understand your children first, see the world from their eyes, feel it and hear it from their eyes. Play the game if you have to. Do you really love your kids? Then understand them. Hey, I am no parent, but my life when I was growing up was something that you wouldn’t believe is even possible, that you wouldn’t believe is true. In fact, I envy a lot of you because you have better lives, you were able to enjoy your days as a kid, as a teenager. That experience taught me to look at things in a different perspective, look at it from the eyes of other people, especially these kids.

To those kids, be wise, don’t be stupid. Do you think you will be able to play your favorite games if you don’t make your life better? If you don’t finish your studies? Think again before you login to World of Warcraft. Your parents will not be there always to give you the money, remember, you have to pay for your home, the electricity, you need to drink, eat, buy clothes, pay for the internet, pay for the game subscription, and many more. No education, means no job. No job, means no gaming for you. Who’s the loser? YOU.


Via: Blizzplanet

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