A young video game fan lay dead in a gaming café for nine hours before anyone noticed.

Chen Rong-yu, 23, is understood to have suffered a heart attack after playing popular multiplayer PC game League of Legends for 23 hours at a café in New Taipei.

A waitress found Rong-yu sitting rigidly in his chair, hands outstretched towards the computer. None of the other 30 gamers around him had realised anything was wrong, the Daily Mail has reported.

As the gamer took regular nap breaks, they were not that alarmed to see him slumped in the chair.

Rong-yu’s family reportedly told the authorities he had been treated for a heart condition in September.

Intense levels of concentration and marathon gaming sessions are common at Chinese internet cafes, where players log onto their favourite online multiplayer games for hours on end.