10 Fanatical Gamers Who Took Their Obsession Way Too Far

2. Chinese Teenager Commits Suicide To Be With Game Heroes In The After Life - World Of Warcraft

The death of the South Korean man from heart failure following his 50 hour Starcraft marathon was clearly an unfortunate event, but the case of the 13-year-old Chinese boy is even more saddening. After a 36 hour long stint on World of Warcraft, the young boy jumped to his death from a tall building. Zhang Xiaoyi died in the incident which took place in 2004, leaving a suicide note which informed his parents how he desired "to join the heroes of the game he worshiped." His suicide sparked a renewed examination of the use of online gaming amongst Chinese children - the country is second in its number of online gamers only to the US, with the spectre of gaming addiction frequently in the news. Psychiatric specialists who studied Zhang Xiaoyi's diary, school records and suicide note concluded that"Zhang had excessively indulged in unhealthy games and contracted serious Internet addiction before his death."