According to a TechinAsia.com article, a joint study between Chinese market research firm Eguan and game company Giant Interactive found that approximately 100 million people in China have “suffered brain damage as a result of video games, according to Sina Tech. The report defines these people as players who have lost self-control and developed an irrational dependence on games.” In other words, gaming addicts.
According to the article, the Chinese government has made developers make the characters lose their powers after three hours of continuous play to force players to rest.
There have been notable reports of Chinese gamers dying after continuously playing for days or weeks at a time, presumably from exhaustion. Reports also include a Tianjin 13-year-old addict’s suicide in hopes of reuniting with his gaming friends in Heaven; a fatal stabbing of a player in Shanghai for selling a video game weapon on eBay. Reports also include the starvation death of a Korean infant whose parents were busy with 12-hour sessions of a fantasy game where they raise a magical child.