Well hey, maybe the game was "To Die For..." Ok sorry that was kind of mean, but seriously, how little self control do you have to have in order to literally NOT be able to stop playing?
And how awesome would a game have to be in order to keep you playing until you died? One way or the other, something is causing these people to play just a bit too much. Worse thing is if they would keep some water nearby and take occasional breaks for food... (a novel thought I know), they wouldn't be dropping like flies.
I'll admit I've had my moments of either playing a game for a LONG time, or working on something on the computer for endless hours at a time. That never stopped me from eating, drinking, and taking time to get up and walk around for a bit.
If my kid was in his room (I'll leave out "her" because I'm pretty sure no girl has ever died from too many videogames) for days on end.. let alone ONE full 24 hour time playing World of Warcraft, I'd be putting a stop to that pretty quickly.
I mean, what do you say at somebody's funeral if they died from sitting for an extended period of time without food and water... while playing Evercrack.. I mean... seriously..