If that superguild lost one of their own during their marathon session over the weekend, we now know why: A 15-year-old Swedish teenager went into colvulsions on November 16th after a 24-hour World of Warcraft marathon.

As you could probably ascertain, the child and his friends were playing around with the Wrath of the Lich King expansion.

According to the father, the child went into convulsion after eating “a little food” and getting “a few hours of sleep”. As you could probably imagine, doctors ascertained that the boy probably went into convulsions because he didn’t eat or sleep. Thankfully, the child will make a full recovery and will be back in Azeroth before long.

Of course, every time there is a video game within ten miles of potential tragedy, it must surely be the games fault. Dr. Richard Graham from The Times:

Some of my clients will discuss playing games for 14 to 16 hours a day at times without breaks and for those the consequences are potentially very severe. The problem with World of Warcraft is the degree it can impact and create a socially withdrawn figure who may be connecting with people in the game and is largely dropping out of education, social opportunities.

One young man described vividly to me a sense that having achieved very high success in the game, when he switched off he felt downgraded.

Rather than try to debate his points, I will simply link to a facepalm image and be done with it.

via GamePolitics

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