Gamer Dies In LAN Cafe, No One Notices

[DTWolfwood]

playing devils advocate here, these lan cafe's arent exactly well lit places. Also the fact that the act of playing a videogame on the PC has you sit pretty much in the same position at all times. Since he was found in the gamer pose, i would highly doubt anyone would give it a second look as they pass him by. I've been to these lan cafes and i'll tell you i don't notice anything thats going on unless there is a loud noise or an earthquake.

So until the man starts to stink up the place, you would not notice a stiff dead man sitting by the computer poised as if he was gaming. Would you look twice at a dead person in a library sitting still with a book in his hand positioned as if he was reading? i wouldn't notice.

edit: ditto to the man above me for saying the same thing.

 

[Bantis]

The body of 23-year-old Chen Rong-yu sat in a crowded Taipei gaming center for nine hours before anyone noticed that something was amiss.

Looks like he was in the wrong place...
*sunglasses*
at the Rong time.


YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Ha! I'm at work supposed to be working. I read this, laugh out loud, now everyone knows I'm not working. ^_^ Damnit!

 

[fnartilter]

The body of 23-year-old Chen Rong-yu sat in a crowded Taipei gaming center for nine hours before anyone noticed that something was amiss.

Looks like he was in the wrong place...
*sunglasses*
at the Rong time.


YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Shit! Beat me to it.

That was essentially the first thing that came to mind... that and "How did it take 9 hours for anyone to notice something was Rong?".

Bahahhahaa! Gold medal and cookies.

Are internet cafes normally cold? There must be a good ac, but all those computers and bodies generate a lot of heat, no?

Spatial awareness isn't so much the problem, people see things, but they just don't always react to them. Case in point: a homeless man who might be dead, might be sleeping, might just be really fucking high in an alley or doorway. Do I check it out? Is it safe? EMTs need to always be careful around the last case because they never know if there's a needle lying, hiding in the guy's jacket, under the blanket/cardboard around dripping with HIV or AIDs.
Seeing someone being assaulted, call the cops. There was a story a year ago where a girl tried to help a guy who was getting his ass kicked by three other doods. The guy being attacked pulls a gun out, and shoots the girl (she dies) and misses his opponents who run away (don't know if they got caught).

 

[Beautiful End]

I couldn't help but laugh. This is genuinely funny because i can imagine the community screaming "omg gtfo noob he dun fukin no how to moov".

That is exactly what first came to my mind. His character, just standing there while people inside the game walk around him ignoring him and thinking he's a noob.

Ignored in real life and ignored in the game. Dang...that DOES sound like an average gamer, actually. :l

 

[Kafloobop]

While I agree that this is horrible and someone should have noticed before 9 hours had passed, I still have to ask the question. Was it a particularly noticeable death? If the guy just kinda stopped, then slumped forward slightly it's kinda reasonable to think that nobody would have really noticed. However if he had stopped, clutched his heart, thrashed about a bit, and then fallen forward and still nobody had noticed, THEN I would be worried about our species's spatial awareness.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

I'm not going to jump on the "videogames are dangerously addictive" bandwagon, but I'm suddenly a bit worried about our species. There are completely immobile thorn bushes in Kenya that have better survival instincts than LAN gamers. In the event of a puma attack, we're little more than squishy meat sacks, but at least previous generations would have thrown something heavy at the snarling beast. Now I wonder if we'd even grumble as our arms are torn off by oversized feline claws.

Aha! The Corliss Resolution!

Spoiler: Courtesy of XKCD

http://xkcd.com/962/

Doesn't mean it can't apply to things other than jumping off of buildings. Gaming, long been better than normal life, now preferred to actually living!

 

[launchpadmcqwak]

The body of 23-year-old Chen Rong-yu sat in a crowded Taipei gaming center for nine hours before anyone noticed that something was amiss.

Looks like he was in the wrong place...
*sunglasses*
at the Rong time.


YYYYYEEEEEAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

you sir win 9001 internets

 

[Monkeyman O'Brien]

Be fair. I have been in internet cafes before and there aint a whole lot of movement going on.
And I have been around enough game addicted nerds to know that a live nerd and a dead nerd would smell about the same for around 3 days or so.

 

[Srkkl]

And another one added to the list of death by gaming.
When will some people learn about self control and simply enough it enough?

Didn't read the article? He died from a heart attack cause by a clot, not by playing too much. This isn't like the guy who starved to death by playing too long.

 

[praetor_alpha]

The body of 23-year-old Chen Rong-yu sat in a crowded Taipei gaming center for nine hours before anyone noticed that something was amiss.
...
The body of Chen Rong-yu, 23, was found slumped in a chair at a cafe in New Taipei city on Tuesday night, according to local reports.
...
He was last seen by a waitress talking on the phone around noon on Wednesday.

I guess I might be the first to point this out, but there's more than 9 hours between living on Wednesday and being dead on Tuesday. The more disturbing thing is that no one remembers seeing him in there that long from Thursday to Monday.

 

[awdrifter]

To be fair, a lot of gamers totally look dead while gaming.

But yeah, this is a bit messed. I can see one hour of not noticing, but NINE? Some waitresses worked their WHOLE SHIFT WHILE HE WAS DEAD and they didn't notice that he wasn't... you know... PLAYING?

Yup, that's what I was thinking.

"Hey, what's up with him?"

"Oh, he's just in the zone."

Extreme gaming has spawned some bizarre deaths alright.

Looks like he just rage quit life.

*Puts on sunglasses* Yeaaaahhhhhhhh!

 

[Upbeat Zombie]

Seems like the kind of people who go to internet cafe's need to learn some moderation if 30 of them couldn't notice a decomposing corpse for nine hours. Or just because of the fact that its not uncommon for people to pass out right there from sleep deprivation. I love games but I could never find them that entertaining.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Shame but doesn't this shit like happen all the time in these cafes?

People need to learn, this is why you need to rest.

 

[ntw3001]

At least he died a happy man I guess, creepy though how this kind of thing is normal now.

Well it's not exactly normal; it's news.

Anyways, as people have said, a man sitting still in from of a computer at a LAN cafe isn't quite as noticeable as a fire breaking out or a car crashing into the building. Nine hours is a surprisingly long time, but why, really, should anyone be expected to notice? Peering around to check out what other players are doing isn't something people typically do. People can claim this is another sign of the impending downfall of civilisation or that they've 'lost all faith in humanity', but it's just another case of people not spotting something they had no reason to pay attention to in the first place. What colour is your neighbour's car, anyway? Chances are you don't know.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

Not sure if it's (still) true, but I heard that 'in China', if you call the ambulance, even for someone you do not know at all, you run the risk of having to pay for everything yourself. If that's true, it explains all those strange internet videos of people lying in the streets of some incredibly large Chinese city, and maybe also this internet cafe happening.

Bear in mind, computer games, while being popular, aren't exactly something The Party condones or likes much.

 

[VoidWanderer]

While this death is sad, and the people not noticing someone dead slightly worrying, this reminds me of the office worker who died at his cubicle and I think it took like a WEEKEND for people to notice the SMELL.

 

[Jegsimmons]

Asia...amirite?

Ill admit this is better than most gaming related deaths.

 

[Zen Toombs]

only in Asia .....

nice to see all the laws they have to stop this kinda thing aren't working.

Erm, are you really going to be that guy? Things happen can (and do) happen everywhere.

 

[snave]

The question isn't why the other gamers didn't notice but why the staffmember didn't. And even then, that is assuming these aren't completely sectioned off booths like the ones in Japan (ie: with a literal 4th wall), in which case 9 hours would kinda make sense as 9-10 hours is a typical "long stay" period of time. After which, the staff would probably go knock on the door to remind the customer their time has expired.

For those of you pushing the stench of decomposition angle: bodies don't rot that rapidly.

People just tend not to notice the difference between someone they don't know lying dead vs. virtually comatose and silently hallucinating (aka: sleeping). Read up on what airlines do with those who die inflight and their reports on how many other passengers actually notice.