Personally, I thought stories like these were urban legends, but I found this at www.wftv.com .
Can you say “Pathetic”?? 

POSTED: 7:36 am EDT August 10, 2005

SEOUL, South Korea—For some people, playing video games can be addictive, and police in South Korea said that may have cost a man his life.

Police said a 28-year-old man collapsed at an Internet cafe and died after playing the battle simulation game Starcraft non-stop for 49 hours. They said he’d barely eaten anything while he was glued to the keyboard.

Doctors think the man might have had a heart attack.

Police said he was fired from his job last month because he kept missing work to play computer games.

Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

I could have sworn I’d seen something about this (or similar to it) on Snopes, but I can’t find it now.

Boo - 10 August 2005 01:03 PM

I could have sworn I’d seen something about this (or similar to it) on Snopes, but I can’t find it now.

Thats where I seen something similar…..Thats why I thought it was just an urban legend….but this article was posted recently…..

But bear in mind that urban legends often do get posted over and over, by journalists who don’t have enough professional integrity to check their sources.

Plus, this guy died of a heart attack - the game didn’t kill him. I know Matt once played Championship Manager (very addictive, I gather) for 52 hours, and he’s still alive and well.

Then the video games didn’t kill him.  His heart did.

This came out last month, I believe.  There was something on the BBC about it at the time.

Geez, when I came in here, there were no posts…I guess I took too long to post.  My mom only let my brothers play video games for 2 hours a day.  That’s TOTAL.  I never had an issue with playing games for too long.

I was considering a heart attack for a 28 yr. old…..I am guessing he was getting alot of caffine or somekind of stimulant….add that and then no food….that would give you a heart attack….

I saw this yesterday via Reuters (fairly reputable but by no means hoax proof)

excerpt

“We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion,” a Taegu provincial police official said by telephone.”

Boo - 10 August 2005 01:09 PM

Plus, this guy died of a heart attack - the game didn’t kill him. I know Matt once played Championship Manager (very addictive, I gather) for 52 hours, and he’s still alive and well.

The bullet didn’t kill him, the blood loss did!

You know what I meant.
As Chuck posted, it was exhaustion that led to the heart attack, so it was the fact that he hadn’t slept, not the fact that he was playing a computer game.