People Are Now Literally DYING While Playing Pokemon Go

Editor’s Note: First it was walking off cliffs and almost getting hit by cars… but now people really are dying while playing this game. Can’t wait until virtual reality fully hits…

A few weeks back we wrote about how Pokemon Go had claimed its first fatality in the United States.  Now, Japan mourns its first victim, as Yukiko Nakanishi was tragically lost to the addictive game.  Nakanishi was crossing the road when a truck struck and killed the 72 year-old hairdresser from Kitayama City.  Meanwhile, Keiji Goou, the truck driver, was arrested by police admitting that he “wasn’t looking ahead properly because [he] was playing Pokemon Go.”  Per the Tokyo Reporter:

Tokushima Prefectural Police on Wednesday arrested a male truck driver in Tokushima City after one woman was killed and another seriously injured due to an accident caused by his playing of the popular game Pokemon Go while he was behind the wheel.

Keiji Goou, 39, was arrested on reckless driving charges for allegedly hitting two women while playing Pokemon Go on a road in the Katanokamicho area at around 7:25 p.m. on Tuesday, Jiji Press reports (Aug. 24). One woman died in the incident while the other was seriously injured.

Goou has admitted to the charges, telling police, according to the Tokyo Broadcasting, he “wasn’t looking ahead properly because I was playing Pokemon Go.”

Police named the woman who died as Yukiko Nakanishi, 72, a hairdresser from Kitayama City.

Apparently police in Japan have cited 1,000 Pokemon Go players for traffic infractions and recorded 79 Pokemon Go-related traffic incidents in just the past year.

Meanwhile, Pokemon Go players in Taiwan have apparently completely lost their damn minds.  The video below recently surfaced on YouTube and allegedly shows a stampede of people running to catch a “Snorlax” (if that actually means anything to anyone reading this).

If all of this leaves you questioning, as we do often, the future of humanity then fear not as Bloomberg reports that the Pokemon Go hysteria may finally be on a down slope.  After launching in early July, daily active users of Pokemon Go seemingly peaked just a couple of weeks later around 45mm users and has been steadily declining ever since.

Meanwhile, after surging a mere 2 trillion yen in the first 2 weeks of July, Nintendo’s shareholders have finally realized that profits, not mass hysteria, actually drive valuations…well, in the long-run anyway…unless you’re the Fed… then the mass hysteria can stretch into the long-term…but that’s a story for another post.