Berzerk is a true story about the weird deaths of two young men who played the same video game in their local arcade. They were the first people in history who were killed by a computer game.
Berzerk was a very successful arcade game that was released in 1980. It was invented by Andrew McNeil after he had a nightmare where he was trapped in a video game and forced to fight robots. The title of the game came from a book called ‘The Berzerker Stories’ about robots who go insane and kill everybody.
Berzerk was the first video game in history that actually killed two of its players.
In the game, you have to guide a little man around a maze which is filled with killer robots who fire lasers at you. If the robots shoot you, you die. If the robots touch you, you die. If you touch the walls, you die. Your nemesis is a bouncing smiley face named Evil Otto who appears out of nowhere and tries to destroy you. Evil Otto is unusual because there is no way to kill him.
Berzerk was one of the first video games to use speech. When you walked by it in the arcade, it would scream, “Coins detected in pocket!” During the game, Evil Otto would scream, “Intruder alert! Intruder alert! The humanoid must not escape! Kill it!”
In January 1981, Jeff Dailey became the first person to be killed by playing a video game. The 19-year old died of a massive heart attack right after attaining a high score of 16,660 on Berzerk.
In April 1982, 18-year old Peter Burkowski Peter Burkowski arrived at Friar Tuck’s Game Room in Calumet City, Illinois. He went straight to the video game machines, dropped a coin into the slot and started playing Berzerk. After 15 minutes, he got his initials into the Top Ten scoreboard. Then, he suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack.
Evil Otto watched both of them die… with a big smile on his face.
Over the years, there have been a number of other fatalities caused by playing video games.
A 33-year-old man from China died after a staggering 27 days of online game play. That’s 650 hours of non-stop gaming. Over this period he barely drank or slept and all he ate was ramen noodles. He died of heart failure and malnutrition.
A 13-year old girl named Anna-Lee Kehoe was playing with her Xbox 360 when she started muttering, “Mom, I can’t breathe.” She suffered a heart attack so severe that she was left brain dead and on life-support. Anna-Lee’s parents decided to pull the plug, making her one of the youngest video game deaths in history. Anna-Lee had asthma and doctors speculated that an asthma attack may have contributed to her heart attack.
A South Korean man called Lee Seung Seop died in 2005 after playing Starcraft. He lost his job and his girlfriend because he spent all of his time playing the game. After a 50-hour gaming binge, Lee told his friends he was going to stop playing and go home. Then, he closed his eyes and fell off his chair. Lee died of heart failure caused by exhaustion and dehydration.
In 2007, a 26-year-old man named Zhang, from Northeast China, died of heart failure after a week-long marathon of online gaming during a national holiday. Zhang was an internet addict who weighed over 330 pounds and never got any exercise.
In 2012, an 18-year old gamer from Taiwan named Chuang died after playing Diablo III for 40 hours straight. He was in an internet cafe at the time passed out by a terminal. When he was awoken by an employee, he managed to stand up, took a few steps, then collapsed. No cause of death was identified at the time, and police were investigating what mind have led to Chuang’s untimely demise.
The most recent video game death was 20-year old Chris Staniforth from the United Kingdom who suffered a pulmonary embolism. Chris frequently participated in 12-hour long Halo sessions without breaks and during one campaign, a blood clot traveled from his legs into his lungs, killing him instantly.
Am I going to die because I’m addicted to SFK? D:
@scary for kids Where are the new stories?????? XO
@nat the killer123
It’s not the same :/
@_@” I never expect someone will respon it that long.. I feel embarassed.. (>_<)
Well.. Thanks for your tips and advice Mechi ! I'll try to improve my english from now on.
(please. don't 'judge' this comment too. My heart is beating very fast just because I read ur comment.. I'm nervous easily..
I've had enough of your 'judgement', Master Mechi.. Heheheh XD )
This people did not die because of video games they died because their idiots.
erm well i played this game for ages and nothing has happened to me so yeah…..
But I really really LOVE Black Ops 2 :(
Mario and Luigi
Mario: luigi you been playing that game for 3 hours!
Luigi: shut up i on the 5 to last level!
Mario: come on i miss you.
Luigi: dude shut up i almost died because of you.
Mario: ok bye.
6 hours later.
Luigi: hey what you doing?
Mario: your back!Man i miss you.
3 second later Luigi pass out
Mario din’t care
Mario: that what he get for dich me
this is my first time doing this so don’t say anything that mean
who here miss flamefletcher stories mario and luigi
sfk added 2 stories and now no more….
Thank God m nt addicted to Video Games…!
@ Mechi…Wow! Ur grammar correction and tips are really good …:)
I read the whole grammar correction thing and WOW!
@Mechi, are you a English teacher?
@Mechi is a grammar Nazi and thank god new stories are out
I’m probably going to die while playing sky-rim or black ops 2
@indigo Your English is ok, but could use a lot of work. First off, you would begin to say “Wow, I never knew there was a death caused by a game” (as you are talking about something in the past, you would use the past verb ‘knew’ instead of ‘know’).you could have also said “I never knew someone died from playing a video game”.Secondly, saying “i’m a gamer too” is partially correct, but in the English language you ALWAYS capitalise the ‘I’, and you always add a , before the word “too” (or before a conjunction and when breaking off into another sentence). The correct way to type it would be “I’m a gamer, too” or “I’m also a gamer”.Now let’s take a closer look at “Better more careful when playing”. It’s grammaticality incorrect, as you NEED a subject AND a verb to fully complete a sentence, so the correct way to say it would be “You better be more careful when playing”. BUT because the sentence is vague on what it’s addressing, you would have to reword it, such as “You should be more careful when playing video games”. In this case, since you have talked about someone dieing due to video games in your previous sentence, it’s clear on what you mean when you say “You better be more careful”, so it is ok to use that sentence. However, if you were to use that sentence as a standalone,it wouldn’t make sense on what you were talking about and would then become unclear and vague (for example, saying someone should be more careful would bring up the question “I should be careful of WHAT exactly?”). So provide a 2nd subject in sentences that ask a question of “Who?” or “What?”.Lastly, to address your “PS” message “is mine English right?”. No, this sentence needs a few adjustments in order to be “right”. You would need to say “my” instead of “mine”. You use “my” in circumstances like “That’s my watch” or “She’s my sister”, and use “mine” as in “That watch is mine” and “That ribbon is mine, not my sister’s”. In other words, you use “my” before the noun or subject, and “mine” after the noun or subject.The last sentence “I’m still studying it” is correct and does not need any revisions, but as I told you before, if this sentence was by itself it wouldn’t make any sentence, as you would need a proper noun or a more descriptive noun than just “it”. “it” doesn’t tell you what you are studying, so a proper subject needs to go there, in the case of a standalone sentence, “English” would need to replace “it”. Also, I’m not trying to insult you or be rude in any way. I’m just trying to give you some tips in how you can improve your English.
Good story, I love video games.
SFK is back!!!!!!!!
keep up the good work!!
New stories :D
… *-*
*Plays Dark Cloud and stretches at the same time and hopes not to die*
@SFK it says Peter Burkowski twice. Just FYI if you want to fix it :)
keep adding new stories, summer time is a fun time for scary stories :D
Awesome!!
Wow.. i never know there is a death caused by game..
i’m a gamer too.. better more carefull when playing..
P.S. : Is mine english right?
I’m still studying it..
Wow.. i never know that is a death caused by game..
i’m a gamer too.. better be carefull when playing..
Woah, that’s some pretty extreme gaming :/