Obese Gamer Dies Playing

...if only it were that simple

An obese gamer from Northeast China's Liaoning Province dies after playing countless hours playing World of Warcraft.

Zhang, from Jinzhou died Wednesday at the age of twenty-six after playing many hours online. According to a doctor at Liaoning Medical Center, the cause of death was overwork and obesity.

Weighing at almost 330lbs., sleep deprivation caused his body to become extremely stressed and his heart just couldn't pump enough blood throughout his entire body.

This is not the first time someone has died after nonstop playing. In 2005, a South Korean man died after spending nearly fifty hours online at a local Internet cafe. Stopping only to use the bathroom and take brief naps on a makeshift bed, the man died of shear exhaustion.

Shortly after in 2005, a young girl, nicknamed Snowby, from Beijing died after spending several days playing WoW during a national holiday. Fellow players that played with her, held an online funeral service to commemorate her passing a week after her death.

After several several tragic incidents that demonstrated extreme devotion to role-playing games, China unveiled a new system to limit play to three consecutive hours or less. The system also keeps track of hours of play. Players must be logged off for at least five hours before returning.

It is sad that we must take such drastic measures to protect our youth. Hours upon hours are spent in the virtual world each day world wide. The majority of these online gamers are those under the age of 25. Kids are easily absorbed into this online world, and become obsessive very quickly.

This is an age of computers. New technologies are being developed each day that influence our younger generation. And we need to be careful. We need to protect our youth, and encourage them to go out into the real world.

Our children are our only hope for the future, but we are their only hope for the present and their future.