Few tragedies are more bizarre than deaths related to gaming
Video games are to die for. Well, not really. They definitely shouldn’t be. Games exist to help make our mundane lives a little more entertaining, to bring joy to the drudgery of daily existence. Though a number of games boast shocking amounts of violence, they’re not supposed to kill people in the real world.
Sadly, there have been certain cases when video games either directly or indirectly contributed to real-world deaths. We discuss some of them here, in this article we’ve called 11 Weird Deaths Related to Gaming. Why ‘weird’? Let us reiterate: games should never lead to anybody’s untimely demise. Death due to gaming is not just unfortunate, it is also nothing less than bizarre.
So steel yourselves, because we’re about to get real morbid.
1. Master Chief does not approve
You do NOT want to disappoint him.
Daniel Petric was only 16 years old when this tragedy shocked the citizens of Ohio in 2007.
Daniel’s parents had previously forbidden him to purchase the game Halo 3, but he did so anyway. When they found out, they weren’t pleased. So they took the game and locked it up in a safe.
Well, Daniel wasn’t pleased with that move, either. Around a week later, he broke into the safe, only to find a 9mm gun next to the game.
He entered the room where his parents were relaxing on a couch, and told them, “Would you close your eyes? I have a surprise for you.”
The parents did as requested – only for Daniel to shoot them both in the head.
The father, Mark Petric, survived the attack. Sadly, the mother, Susan Petric, died instantly. Daniel fled the house – with the game in hand – but the police nabbed him not much later. Daniel was sentenced to life in prison.
Truly one of the most disturbing deaths related to gaming.
2. Diablo claims a life
Learn to say no to the Devil.
Diablo III is an addicting game. And you know what they say about addiction: it kills.
On July 13, 2012, a Taiwanese 18-year-old named Chuang reserved a room in a Tainan café so that he could play his favorite game in private. So he played. And played. And played. He didn’t even stop for any meals.
On July 15, an attendant working at the café entered the room to find Chuang resting. He shook Chuang awake, who then stood to leave. Chuang crashed to the floor after only a few steps.
Chuang expired within minutes of arriving at the hospital.
Authorities speculated Chuang’s death was caused by a blood clot, which was most possibly linked to sitting in front of a computer for more than 40 hours straight.
Strangely enough, a similar death occurred in Taiwan earlier that same year. In New Taipei, a man died of a heart attack after 23 uninterrupted hours of play.
3. DOTA – another reason for the elderly to hate video games?
Respect your elders, kids.
Defense of the Ancients (DOTA) is really popular with the kids in the Philippines. And while the worst some kids will do for the game is skip class, one youngster took his obsession to whole ‘nother level.
One evening in 2014, a 17-year-old boy was playing DOTA when his 68-year-old grandmother arrived at the computer shop to fetch him. Upon reaching home, she began to scold him for his gaming habits. The boy snapped and beat her to death. Before he could realize what he had done, he was already washing the bloodstains to remove any traces of the act.
That night, the boy visited his aunt to confess his crime. After returning to the house and seeing the grisly scene for herself, the aunt called the police for assistance. The boy is currently under the supervision of social workers.
The most heartbreaking part of this story? The grandmother was responsible for raising the teenager since childhood. One of the saddest deaths related to gaming.
4. The only monster deadlier than Kerrigan
StarCraft. It's deadly.
In South Korea, StarCraft is a gaming phenomenon for good reason: it’s got amazing strategy mechanics, a great story, plus it’s fun to play. Did we also mention it’s incredibly addicting?
In 2005, a 28-year-old South Korean industrial boiler repairman named Lee Seung Seop became obsessed with StarCraft, so much so that it started affecting his work and personal life.
Then one day, he went to an internet café in Taegu, and began what would end up becoming an unbelievable 50-hour StarCraft marathon. During the prolonged gaming session, he would only stop to relieve himself in the toilet and take short naps. What happened next would not surprise anyone: he collapsed from exhaustion. Then he died shortly after being taken to the hospital. Cause of death? Cardiac arrest induced by dehydration and fatigue.
It’s a good thing we don’t hear more cases involving death by StarCraft, given the country’s infatuation with the game. Actually, we’d rather not hear any more deaths related to gaming - StarCraft-related or not.
5. Real-life PvP, Lineage II-style
Let the killing stay in the game - where it belongs.
Contrary to what some politicians say, deaths related to gaming are often eye-openers to the dangers of an unstable mind, not of video games themselves. Sometimes, however, the tragedy is so shocking that even those on the fence about the effect of video games on behavior can’t help but pin the blame on the entire industry.
The following event took place in Russia in 2008. The game at the center of the story? The MMORPG Lineage II.
Two guilds got into a heated argument after a player’s in-game character was killed by a rival guild. The two groups then agreed to settle the score in person.
Shortly after meeting in the real world, the guilds proceeded to beat the bloody snot out of each other. It got so bad that one of them had to be rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately, the unnamed man succumbed to his injuries along the way. An utterly senseless death, brought about by an equally pointless feud concerning occurrences in a make-believe world.
6. Xbox user turns child killer
It's a great platform, sure... it's not worth someone's life, though.
Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what game you play – or that you’re even a gamer – at all. If you’ve got violent tendencies, severe anger management issues, and a couple of dozen loose screws, you’re a danger to yourself and to others.
In 2006, gaming aficionado Tyrone Spellman was playing with his Xbox when his 17-month-old daughter, Aliyiah, accidentally yanked the machine’s cords out of their sockets. The Xbox fell and broke.
Spellman went postal on Aliyiah, pummeling her skull until it cracked in not one, but several places. As you can guess, the poor little girl didn’t make it. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Spellman positioned her body in the proximity of a barbell to make it appear as if she had had an accident.
Spellman fooled no one, however, and was sentenced to 47 years in jail for the deed.
7. A fight over a virtual sword turns lethal
Again, it's just a game, folks.
We’ve all had our share of MMORPG woes: grinding for hours, hoping against all hope that the next loot drop would make the difference, and then, after what seems like forever, finally acquiring that rare and powerful artifact ensuring we will be at the center of all those envious glances for months.
So we know exactly how Qiu Chengwei, a gamer from Shanghai, felt when he obtained the “dragon sabre” in the MMORPG, Legend of Mir III, sometime in 2004.
For some reason (out of the goodness of his heart, maybe?), Chengwei lent his sword to his gaming buddy, Zhu Caoyuan. And how did Caoyuan repay his friend’s generosity? By selling the sword for 7,200 yuan (roughly USD 1,000).
Chengwei complained to the police about the theft, but the latter only told him to bugger off, explaining to him that since the item stolen was virtual, no real crime had been perpetrated.
Though we can empathize with Chengwei’s anger, most of us will find it hard to understand why he did what he did next. Chengwei went over to Caoyuan’s home, and stabbed the 26-year-old in the chest with a very non-imaginary blade. Needless to say, Caoyuan did not survive the fatal attack.
Chengwei was sentenced to life for the atrocity.
8. Farmville and an obsessive personality: a deadly combination
A Facebook nightmare
Remember when Farmville was all the rage on Facebook?
Well, one person certainly does. Leave it to a mother from Jacksonville, Florida, to prove that even something as harmless as a farm simulation browser game can lead to horror.
22-year-old Alexandra Tobias was fixated on Farmville. One day, she was playing the game when her baby, Dylan Lee, interrupted her with his nonstop crying. In anger, she grabbed the child and shook him so hard that he died.
She is now facing 25 to 50 years in jail. Few deaths related to gaming are this abominable.
9. World of Warcraft and the afterlife: the connection
We're pretty sure your friends can wait. So no rush.
MMORPGs take us to virtual realms so wonderful we sometimes find ourselves preferring them to the real world. But while a little wishful thinking is harmless, living and dying for a video game certainly isn’t.
Xiao Yi was obsessed with World of Warcraft, and would spend days at computer shops playing. In contrast to most addiction stories on this list, Xiao Yi was actually aware that what he was doing was unhealthy. He even told his father that video games had “poisoned” him to the point he no longer had any control over his own actions. His parents, however, were not internet or tech-savvy; as worried as they were, they didn’t know how to help him.
Then in 2005, Xiao Yi did the unthinkable – he climbed a 24-story building to the very top, then leapt to his death. He was only 13.
He left behind a suicide letter, which he had written in the point of view of an in-game character. He stated the he hoped to rejoin his gaming buddies in heaven. No mention was made of his parents.
10. Grand Theft Auto? Not as fun in real life
There's a reason it's called a video game. It's supposed to be a FANTASY.
Here’s a case that has become notorious for some the most gruesome deaths related to gaming.
In 2003, 18-year-old Devin Moore went on a violent rampage that would chill anyone who has ever enjoyed the Grand Theft Auto series. Moore’s crime spree began when he was taken to a police station for what was suspected to be his theft of a car. Moore freaked out, grabbed officer Arnold Strickland’s gun, and shot him dead. Alerted by the gunfire, officer James Crump rushed into a hallway to apprehend Moore, but the boy shot him to death, too. Moore proceeded down the hallway, entered the room of a 911 dispatcher, and killed Ace Mealer.
The teenager then stole some car keys, and used a police cruiser to escape. He was eventually captured.
According to reports, Moore used the following statement to explain his actions to the police: “Life is like a video game. Everybody’s got to die sometime.”
Moore was an avid Grand Theft Auto fan. In the trial that followed, Moore’s defense claimed that the he couldn’t be held responsible for the killings because the game had eradicated his ability to tell reality from fiction. The controversy allowed influential personalities to denounce the game as a “murder simulator,” and put violent video games in the limelight.
Moore was eventually sentenced to be executed by lethal injection.
11. High scores and heart attacks
These video game-related deaths had to start somewhere.
Deaths related to gaming are as old as video gaming itself, with the very first fatalities occurring in the early 1980s.
In 1981, 19-year-old Jeff Dailey stepped into an arcade with a single mission: to attain the highest score possible on the robot-killing game, Berzerk. After pushing himself to the limit, he achieved a fantastic score of 16,660 points… only to die of heart failure moments after entering his name on the high score list.
In 1982, a thousand miles from where the first tragedy occurred, 18-year-old Peter Burkowski strolled into a different arcade, but with the same goal, and the very same game. It took him roughly 15 minutes to obtain a score he could be proud of. He proceeded to enter his initials twice in the list of high scorers. You can guess what happened next.
Both cases revealed that the men had already been suffering from weak hearts. In the end, however, the stress they experienced attempting to beat their personal best led to their downfall.
Thus ends 11 Weird Deaths Related to Gaming. Did these horrific tales shock and disturb you? Tell us what you think in the comments section below!
We at Gamers Decide prefer our horror on the fictional side, as we’re sure you, the readers, do too. For scary games that won’t get you killed, here are a couple of articles you might enjoy:
11 New Horror Games Coming Out in 2016
11 New Horror Game Trailers of 2016
7 Reasons Why We Love Horror Games
