Gaming requires a peculiar concentration. It also sometimes attracts peculiar people.
Or is it that gaming makes people peculiar?I drift into this difficult philosophical territory in memory of Chen Rong-Yu, a 23-year-old gamer in New Taipei, Taiwan. He died while gaming in an Internet cafe.And, well, according to news agency AFP, no one realized for up to nine hours.AFP has it that the young gentleman was identified as mortified by a waitress who must have wondered why he'd been sitting there motionless.In truth, there is no way of knowing just how long he had actually been dead. No one can be sure when he emitted his final breath. And yet, one might imagine that the actual act of dying might have attracted a soupcon of attention.Perhaps, being sympathetic to humanity, you might imagine it was an off-night for the cafe. Perhaps no one had been there. Sadly, the report suggests that at least 30 people had been in, gamed, and gone during the time the man was there. But what were the other gamers in the cafe playing? Perhaps it was something loud, raucous, and mesmerizing, the noises and lights drowning anything else in their presence. Or perhaps they were playing FarmVille and so much stillness abounded in their virtual fields that one more element of stillness seemed entirely natural.One can only hope that this Internet cafe's visitors might be more mindful of their fellow man in future days and weeks. One can only hope.
