Playing video games is usually considered a safe pastime, other than perhaps damaged hardware due to mishaps or an emotional reaction to a game's moving story point. And of course there is the occasionally irreparable damage caused to equipment due to rage quitting during a game or personal injuries that result from such over-the-top reactions. However, people sometimes forget that using any electronics runs a potential risk, even on the best day.
Twitch streamer Jaime Bickford, aka Karma, was playing Rocket League during a storm in June 2020 when a stroke of lightning caused electricity to travel up her game controller’s wires and shock her. The incident was caught live, and Jaime could be heard crying in pain and fear. She shared a photo (below) of her controller’s damaged micro USB port on social media and explained that she had experienced minor burns that needed to be iced all night.
An almost identical incident happened on Saturday in Robertson County, Tennessee, when a man playing a game on Saturday was literally shocked after a nearby lightning strike sent electricity up the wires of his controller. The man managed to call emergency medical services, and they assessed that he didn’t appear injured and didn’t need to be transported to the hospital. They estimated that either his house had been directly struck by lightning or it had landed in close proximity. Thankfully, both gamers in these incidents were relatively unharmed, aside from perhaps the alarm caused by the events.
Then there are the more serious perils of video gaming, particularly in this age of livestreaming. Swatting has become a real and constant menace for some popular streamers, as has the reality of hostile viewers showing up on streamers’ doorsteps. On Friday, an angry neighbor broke into Russian content creator Victoria’s home and began wrecking her gaming setup before being maced.
Usually, the rare video game-related injury is unfortunately caused by people’s actions. Tensions over Pokemon GO have led to physical altercations on more than one occasion and, when it first launched, the game was used to find targets for a string of robberies until warnings about the danger began to spread.
Even game developers aren't immune to danger. For example, a Dragon Quest of the Stars player, disgruntled at his poor luck with the game’s RNG, sent 37 death threats to Square Enix employees throughout November 2020 before his arrest in February of this year. After losing in Pro Evolution Soccer on mobile, a high-school student in Japan left reviews containing bomb threats aimed at Konami. Fortunately, all of these incidents are uncommon when compared to the millions of people who play video games safely every day.