Hong Kong (CNN)A 32-year-old man was found dead in an Internet cafe in Taiwan
after a marathon three-day gaming binge, the island's second death of an
online gamer this year.
The man, surnamed Hsieh, entered the cafe in Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second
largest city, on January 6, Jennifer Wu, a police spokesperson from the Hunei
district precint told CNN.
An employee found him motionless and sprawled on a table at 10 a.m. on
January 8 and he was rushed to hospital, where he was pronounced dead from
cardiac failure, she added.
"He has been unemployed for a long time, and internet cafes were the only
place he could go to," she said.
"His family said he would disappear for two to three days on end."
Police first released details of the case late last week.
It is not known exactly how long the man lay dead in the Internet cafe but
police said his corpse had begun to stiffen so he must have been dead for
several hours before they arrived on the scene.
Exhaustion
Police said gamers in the café continued as if nothing happened even when
the police and paramedics arrived.
"The CCTV footage from the Internet cafe showed that he had a small struggle
before he collapsed motionless," said Wu.
Cold temperatures and over-exhaustion from the long hours spent playing games
likely contributed to Hsieh's cardiac arrest, a police statement said.
According to the Taipei Times, the man was a "regular customer" who often
played for consecutive days.
"When tired, he would sleep face down on the table or doze off slumped in his
chair," the staff member was quoted as saying.
"That is why we were not aware of his condition in the beginning."
Taiwan is no stranger to deaths from marathon sessions of online gaming.
Hsieh's death came after 38-year-old man was found dead at an Internet cafe
in Taipei on January 1 after playing video games for five days straight.
And in 2012, the corpse of man who died playing online games went unnoticed
for 10 hours by other gamers and staff.
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