Several days ago, the gaming community (and the world at large) sadly lost Chen Rong-yu, a 23-year-old Taiwanese gamer with a pre-exisitng heart condition, when he keeled over playing League of Legends in a Taipei game cafe. There’s no lighthearted snark to the last sentence (that comes later), because this is a sad and unfortunate story. According to reports, Rong-yu was dead for up to NINE hours and surrounded by thirty people before anyone noticed. Early police details may link his death to low temperatures that might have triggered a cardiac arrest. It’s difficult to spin a joke around this for someone with a pre-exisiting condition, but the real sadness might be in how intense the OTHER gamers were to not even notice Rong-yu’s death. What jerks! To put a positive, comedic spin on this story (and seriously we mean no disrespect to this guy), here are some helpful hints if you don’t want to meet your tragic demise playing games in public.
1) A Warning System
We doubt Mr. Chen’s death was preventable (nor do we suggest that we have insight that would’ve kept him alive /covering our asses from backlash), but if you find yourself in a gaming cafe and are fearful of your mortality, we suggest a simple warning system to those around you. After all, it’s a tragedy that no one even noticed Mr. Chen’s death for up to nine goddamn hours.
We suggest screaming every thirty minutes, “I’M STILL ALIVE” to those around you. If people chuckle because they think this is a Portal reference, you can say, “STILL BREATHING” while leaning in real close to their faces… as if you were going for an Eskimo kiss. You can probably even say, “YES, I’M CURRENTLY LIVING. THANKS FOR ASKING” if you want to be passive-aggressive about it. Rest assured, this is helpful in that no one forgets a face. However, it might keep people from checking on you if you suddenly eat it. Same reasoning for why I don’t go near homeless people screaming for money. You just don’t want to approach people making you feel uncomfortable. Maybe, you can get a heart monitor so that people will know if you flat-line. Or breathe really loudly so that the minute you stop breathing really loud, other people will be like, “That guy isn’t breathing as loudly as he once was. I think I’ll check on him.” Think about it. You can tell we have.
2) Don’t Play in Cafes
We’re trying to spare you the fate of dying in public at a gaming cafe. The obvious answer to this is to steer clear of these cafes in the first place. Simple, right? Hell, all the cafes I see in Koreatown are filled with smokers and smoking indoors is illegal in California. It’s easy to stay away from death traps. Well, if you look at our flawless logic, you can perish in your own home and people can think you’ve died in any number of ways. What we suggest is dressing up your dwelling to throw off the trail that you might’ve died while gaming. Scatter some shit around and it looks like a home invasion. Carve some of the door off and leave paw prints: now you’re the victim of a bear attack.
3) The Buddy System
The buddy system NEVER fails. Remember in elementary school when you had to have a buddy on field trips? You thought it was a way for the teachers and parents to instill a sense of responsibility in you, when really it was to make sure they had a head count on kids. You think they really said, “Jimmy is missing!”? No, they went, “Oh shit, we’re missing one of them.” With the buddy system, they’d now say, “Shit, we’ve lost two of them. Now it’s a big deal.”
Anyway, bring a buddy for your gaming. DON’T let them play. We know playing games is tempting (we’ve all been there!), but steer them away from StarCraft and Counter-Strike. It’s the only way to make sure you both make it out of that cafe alive. Don’t let them do anything but watch your body too. We suggest they regulate your body’s functions as you play. Don’t even let them watch the screen. If they take their eyes off the prize (meaning you), you can die. And that’s the point of this article. We don’t want you to die. Ever.
2 Comments
Much LOL was had.
I wish PC gaming cafes and arcades were more prevalent in the US, but I guess it probably doesn’t make much sense to have them unless it’s a big city.