Wrath of the Twitch King

18 Nov 2008 at 11:35:51 by

A Swedish boy has suffered an epileptic seizure after playing Wrath of the Lich King for 24 hours straight.

A Swedish report (via The Times) claims that the boy and his friends were playing the game when the boy went into a seizure.

After visiting a local hospital, a doctor told the father that his son’s body had been disrupted due to lack of food, sleep and the intense concentration associated with playing the game.

The teenager, who was playing with six other friends and is expected to make a full recovery, said that he was going to reduce the amount he would play in the future.

His father said that “boys need to reduce the amount of time they play” and be “more vigilant” when it comes to gaming.

Wrath of the Lich King, the new expansion for World of Warcraft, was released last Wednsday, and has reached second place in the all formats charts. 

Speaking to the BBC, child psychiatrist at the Tavistock Centre Dr Richard Graham, said there are concerns with the amount of time children spend playing videogames.

“One young man described vividly to me a sense that having achieved very high success in the game, when he switched off he felt downgraded.” he said. “Some of my clients will discuss playing for 14 or 16 hours a day without breaks and for those the consequences are very severe.”

We’ve put a call in to Dr Guy Cumberbatch, a psychological specialist in videogaming and we’ll let you know what he has to say on the matter.

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