Ok, while surfing around MSNBC.com today, I came across a story about a man in China that died over the weekend, "After a 'marathon' session of online gaming." Curious as to how this would be turned on the gaming community, I foolishly clicked on the link and read the article.
While MSNBC.com made a big deal about Xu Yan leading a dull life and spending the entire 7 day holiday of the Chinese New Year either watching TV or playing online video games, they seemed to gloss over a very important point...this 26 year old gamer was 330 pounds.
I'm not a physician, I don't even play one on TV, but I'm willing to wager that a big factor in his death wasn't so much that he played online games for a week straight, but that he was massively obese. I'm a big fan of placing blame where it lays, and this article bothered me because it seemed to want to blame an industry that probably had nothing to do with the death.
So, if somebody from MSNBC.com happens to read this (though I doubt they will), in the future it would be nice if you could make the focus of your pieces on something slightly more factually based. I know sensationalism sells papers, but you're only hurting your reputation by putting up stories like this.
George R. Perry
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