A man who died while participating in a 24-hour video game marathon in the United States was part of an online livestreaming community in which members sometimes go to extremes to build their audiences, experts say.
Brian Vigneault, 35, had spent about 22 hours playing the online wargame "World of Tanks" on the streaming platform Twitch.tv. He had told followers watching him play that he was raising money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
But early on Sunday, the father-of-three from Virginia, rose from his computer for a cigarette break but never reappeared.
"He was in rough shape," said friend and fellow streamer Jessica Gebauer.
"I watched him until about half an hour before he said he'd be right back," she said. "He just looked really, really tired. We were telling him, 'Go to sleep. The stream can wait."'
Virginia Beach police responded to an emergency call for cardiac arrest and Vigneault was pronounced dead at the scene, while the cause of manner of his death remain under investigation.
One of the most popular websites in the US, Twitch is a "congested marketplace" in which streamers are vying for eyeballs, according to Nicholas Thiel Taylor, a digital media professor at North Carolina State University.
"There is pressure on a lot of these folks to go to extremes to build an audience," he said.
"It doesn't seem that gruelling on the surface, but you're interacting with people and playing a video game and temporarily putting off your biological needs."
Gebauer said 24-hour marathons are not uncommon. She did one herself.
"By doing it for so long, you get people from all different time zones," she said. "There's more opportunity for donations."
Vigneault's Twitch profile says he had raised nearly $US11,000 ($A14,314) for various charities during his five-year streaming career.
Make-A-Wish spokesman Josh deBerge told The Associated Press in an email that the organisation was investigating whether it had entered into any fundraising agreements with Vigneault.
Gebauer has set up a GoFundMe page set up for Vigneault's children which so far had raised over $US17,000.
