Fake Website Claims Man Died From Halo 3
By Chris on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 1:32 PM PST In Gamer Life, Games Industry
Our own beloved Daniel Perez is always on top of things across the Internet, and regularly tips off us news editors about stories we might not otherwise find. He came across this seemingly tragic story about a man who died from exhaustion after a 50 hour Halo 3 marathon. The story seems legitimate enough; it didn’t seem like there was anything fishy about it.
That was until two of our news editors, Shawn Sines and Jonathan Fincher, decided to look for the source – apparently Reuters, as cited within the story – and came up empty. At this point I was interested enough to start poking around; I noticed that the site this story is on, The Village Beacon, had an odd URL. Sure enough, I clicked the header and was sent to an identical website, albeit with a completely different URL. (beaconrecord.com is the actual website.)
I kept poking around and noticed that many of the links on the story’s page didn’t work, and that the domain itself seemingly pointed nowhere. Thanks to the power of the Internet, I ran a WHOIS on both domains, and sure enough, they were completely different. While the actual website is owned by someone located in New York (which is what The Beacon Record covers), the facsimile is owned by a man by the name of James Culver, who lives in Wyoming. (See, you really aren’t safe on the Internet.)
A simple Google search yielded this story about the South Korean man who died after a long MMO session. Coincidentally, he too was 28-years-old and played for 50 hours, just as the individual who “died” in this bogus story. Much of the text is lifted verbatim, including quotes and various facts.
While Archive.org didn’t have any pages for the domain cached, and Google yielded little help in figuring out who this individual is, it leads me to wonder if this isn’t the work of some radical person(s) opposed to videogames.
You can see the article in its entirety after the break, as well as a screen capture of the article. I have no intention of linking to it as I don’t want this website to get any more attention than we’re already giving it.
And I’d like to add that it’s appalling that someone would go so far as to more or less fake an individual’s death to further their cause. Simply disgraceful.
The story, copy and pasted directly from the website:
Halo 3 Results in Fatality
28-Year-Old Man Dies of Exhaustion
By Malcom CromarSHOREHAM – A Shoreham man has died after reportedly playing an online computer game for 50 hours with few breaks.
The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Halo 3at an internet cafe in Shoreham, according to authorities.
The man had not slept properly, and had eaten very little during his marathon session, said police.
Multi-player gaming in the United States is extremely popular thanks to its fast and widespread broadband network.
Games are televised and professional players are treated, as well as paid, like sports stars.
Professional gamers there attract huge sums in sponsorship and can make more than $100,000 a year.
The man, identified by his family name, Lee, started playing Halo 3 on its release date. He only paused playing to go to the toilet and for short periods of sleep, said the police.
“We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion,” a police official told the Reuters news agency.
He was taken to hospital following his collapse, but died shortly after, according to the police. It is not known whether he suffered from any previous health conditions.
They added that he had recently been fired from his job because he kept missing work to play video games.
And a screen capture of the story (click to enlarge):
Perhaps it was a person opposed to Halo 3 specifically.
While I don’t agree with Microsofts wonderful ad campaigns, I do recognize that the game itself is interesting, albeit containing the same kind of gameplay seen in previous entries in the franchise.
I don’t really find it disheartening that a person would make an attempt on Video games, because there are people, every where who do that, it’s the people who have weight with their accusations that bother me.
I could tell it was a fake just by reading title. Halo 3 is just not interesting enough nor does it contain the content value to keep a player engulfed in game-play for 50 hours.
Does the fool really believe that he can trick people? This can happen with games like WoW, not Halo 3. I do know that Halo 3 is a very good multiplayer game but I doubt that it could cause a thing like this.
Theres alot of things wrong with that story. First off Halo 3 is only for the console Xbox 360. Not computer. Second the halo 3 campane is only 12 hours long non stop on legendary all by your self play. Third The only way you can come close to dieing from Halo 3 is if you have a savere seasure. And also is says right there “He only paused playing to go to the toilet and for short periods of sleep,” He stoped to go get some sleep. Even just a little would help out. I’ve stayed up with no rest what so ever for 48 hours “not playing halo” and I was just fine. Sure i was tired but i got some sleep and was fine the next day.
P.S. I know my spelling sucks!!
The part that makes it the most obvious that that story is fake is when it says “The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Halo 3at an internet cafe in Shoreham, according to authorities.” YOU CAN’T PLAY HALO 3 AT AN INTERNET CAFE!!! (unless there’s some new internet cafe that has an Xbox 360) Also, he missed a space. I may be nitpicking, but wouldn’t a real article go through some form of proof-reading before it got posted? It’s as if he didn’t even try to make the article look real.
Wow that guy is an idiot.
@StinkDude1: I’ve seen internet cafes that have consoles in them. I actually applied to work at one, but I decided to turn down their offer since it took over an hour to get there. But yes, there are internet cafes that have consoles in them.
It is suspect, as mentioned before, that such a person devoted to playing halo 3 would play it in an internet cafe, especially as it is a console game.
In addition, I am not away of televised gaming events in America. Well, I am, but not the the extent that they’d be mentioned in an article about the death of a random player. Even Zyos or the ogres are not treated as sports stars.
The main odd thing is that the article stems from a US source, and still says:
Professional gamers THERE
And proceeds to give an inaccurate description, to a US audience, of what the US game scene is like…
Honestly; this guy is a moron.
why would anyone place any trust in the internet anyway?
Seriously, anyone taking the internet seriously = fail.
What amuses me is not the article itself; it’s the way the people above me are calling the author an idiot and a moron. It was a JOKE; a spoof. Of COURSE it’s going to come across as fake. People who feel the burning desire to analyse and dissect an obvious spoof are the ones I would consider morons, not the person who posted the spoofed article.
Honesty … this guy is a genius.
Also…
He’s everywhere.
Actually Chris, I think you are first, a complete moron for caring so much about this story, it was obviously set up to fool and cause people as stupid as YOU to wonder if it was real long enough to investigate it.
And secondly, you are a complete ASSHOLE for posting someones personal information on the internet, regardless of how asinine you found this spoof to be.
In closing, you are a deush.