Many of South Korea's 17 million gamers -- some 35 percent of the population, principally males in their teens and twenties -- are obsessive. At the 1,000 won-per-hour ($1) Internet cafes popular among young South Koreans, they'll sit eyes glued to monitors for hours on end. Sometimes play will extend for days.
"I've seen people who play games for months, just briefly going home for a change of clothing, taking care of all their eating and sleeping here," Jun said.
Gamers camped out at Internet cafes typically live on instant cup noodles and cigarettes, barely sleeping and seldom washing.
October 9, 2005
"The energy you consume (while playing) is immense. The degree of concentration and absorption is so great that you lose yourself."
Playing video games in Korea:
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3 comments:
Life, as usual, imitates William Gibson.
You know, I can believe it, because I had a friend almost drop out of life completely stuck playing a game.
A few years back, some college classmates and I noticed one of our friends stopped showing up to classes.
His close friends went to check on him at home, and found he'd been playing an online game nonstop for 2 weeks. Like a drug addict, he'd neglected just about everything else, and was suffering from exhaustion when his friends showed up. He was supposedly relieved when they unplugged his computer - it was really an intervention.
The guy came back to class after that, but he had to keep himself from playing the game for fear of relapsing.
I'm younger than msot people here. When I was a preteen and a teenager I would play video games everyday for 6-8 hours after school. I would focus on beating a game for hours on end. Then I would beg my parents to buy me more games. Christmases and birthdays were new game days at my family.
I still play viedo game, but I don't have the patience to sit there for hours and hours. After 2 hours I can easily get sick of it. Its frustrating, Back then I wanted to play video game so badly but I had no moeny, now I have plenty of money but not as much time or interest!
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