Another tragedy from the virtual battlefields. During China's week-long National Day holiday last month, a young girl died after playing World of Warcraft for several consecutive days. Her nickname was "Snowy" (perhaps inspired by Maggie Cheung's tragic character in Hero?) and her passing was acknowledged in an online funeral service by fellow WoW gamers. A young South Korean boy met the same fate back in August and there have been other instances of online game addiction resulting in exhaustion, bodily neglect, and death.

While Chinese gamers have protested their government's plan to limit online gaming to three-hour intervals starting next year, this most recent tragedy helps make the case for some kind of regulation. It also raises issues of responsibility, both at the individual and gaming community level. What other forms of intervention should be considered to help avoid these accidents in the future, and should the developers and publishers take action? Let me know what you think.

how to avoid this?

get some forking sleep (not a typo)

maybe after 24 hours of consecutive play they "hold" the account for 10 hours.

Wait, how did they die? From starvation..or just a lack of sleep?

Edit: Ninja'd

I would think lack of sleep, exaustion. Why? Because seriously... Why would someone play a game and not even think about eating for 7 whole days..... And you can actually live longer than 7 days without food... I bet her parents have their own computers that they play games like WoW on.

Btw Death by starvation, exaustion

How old was she...?

Idk, i went through many articals and i couldnt find an age, all i have found is "young girl" and a WoW player so im guessing 15 years of age or under

She died from playing wow for like a week straight. I can believe that she died from dehydration.

I think she died because of extreme dehydraytion and head-ache or fever.

afaik you can live for 2 weeks without sleep before your body finally shuts down.

Also where were the parents in this whole thing? You kinda wonder why they didnt even do anything while their daughter played for a week straight.