Nine million years – that’s how much time WoW players have spent in #Azeroth and the surrounding worlds since the release of Blizzard’s online role-playing game. By comparison, the first early humans (i.e., the first evolution from the great apes) evolved about seven million years ago. So the Blizzard community has been playing WoW for a period longer than the entire history of the homini species.

What does the playing time say about the popularity of WoW?

Given this astronomical number, it’s little wonder that WoW fans on reddit are directly cracking cynical jokes and complaining that certain mounts like Invincible still haven’t been dropped for them. In response to one player’s comment that he was still waiting for Invincible, others recall their futile farm runs for the Time Lost Proto-Dragon or the Celestial Onyx Cloud Serpent.

Other players indulge in further musings, such as the fact that based on the current world population, each person on Earth spends about 12 hours WoW (buy now ) would have gambled in his life. Another interesting calculation is made by reddit user adanine.