Gamer’s death raises issue of live streaming risks
Early on Feb. 19, Brian Vigneault was nearing the end of a 24-hour marathon of live streaming himself playing the tank warfare video game World of Tanks when he left his computer to buy a pack of cigarettes. He never returned.
During the break, Vigneault died in his Virginia Beach, Va., home. The medical examiner said that Vigneault’s cause of death had not yet been determined. There was no indication of foul play, according to police.
But Vigneault’s friends wonder if the lengthy live streaming on Twitch, a website owned by Amazon that lets people broadcast themselves playing games, may not have helped. At the time of his death, Vigneault, 35, had streamed for 22 hours straight to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Two of his friends said that he often broadcast his game playing for long periods.
Vigneault’s death followed reports of other players dying during or after lengthy gaming sessions in Taiwan and South Korea, intensifying a discussion about the health risks of a streaming culture that rewards people for staying online for long periods. Streamers have written about the potential dangers of playing for hours on end.
Live streaming of video game playing has become popular in recent years. The activity has taken center stage on sites like YouTube and Twitch, which has nearly 10 million daily visitors. Professional game streamers can sometimes make a living off these sites through advertising, subscriptions and other revenue sources.
Yet would-be professional streamers typically endure a relentless grind to build an audience. Anytime they leave their computers, they risk having followers peel away to another channel. The resulting lifestyle is often unhealthy, requiring long sedentary periods with little sleep. Some gamers are fueled by junk food, caffeine and alcohol.
A Twitch spokesman said of Vigneault that “we are greatly saddened about the passing of one of the Twitch community.”
Wargaming, the company that makes World of Tanks, wrote in an email that it was “saddened to hear of the loss of … Brian Vigneault.”
Soon after Vigneault’s death, Joe Marino, 45, who has more than 40,000 followers on Twitch, wrote an article on Medium about the emergency heart surgery he had in 2015.
In an interview, he said his relentless streaming schedule — at least seven or eight hours a day, seven days a week — led to the surgery, an experience from which he is still recovering. Marino, of Rochester, N.Y., said he has dialed back his streaming to focus on photography.