14 DAY TRIAL // Riot Games' free-to-play multiplayer battle arena game League of Legends has certainly come a long way since its debut back in 2009, even though it may not seem that way on the surface.
The latest figures show that Riot's creation is one of the most played games in the world, as of January 2014 drawing over 67 million users each month, with 27 million players enjoying ganking Teemo each day, 7.5 million of them doing it concurrently during peak hours.
The dedication of MOBA players is legendary, as is their toxicity, rumored to be one of the best solvents for sanity. While we could do without their toxic behavior, it's the story of dedication that ranks high with us.
Barely a month ago, LoL player Hai "Hai" Du Lam, from pro team Cloud 9, was rushed to the hospital after suffering a collapsed lung. If you were asked to point out the biggest life-altering technological advancement that modern hospitals benefit from, you would be hard-pressed to think that wi-fi is the one.
As such, the 21-year-old player came to terms with the fact that his unfortunate accident prevented him from attending the upcoming All-Star event in Paris by streaming four hours of gameplay from the hospital bed.
While hospital streams may not become the next big thing since sliced bread any time soon, his "accomplishment" speaks volumes about the level of involvement of MOBA players. And about the fact that playing twitchy games can make regular life seem pretty boring, especially when you're stuck with a collapsed lung.
Many players have raked in a lot of hours of play time during the years, and for all those interested in finding out how much time has been wasted playing League of Legends there's finally a solution in the form of a dedicated website whose only purpose is to do just that.
As such, players can just visit WastedOnLoL.com, enter their user name and region and then see how many hours they spent logged on to Riot's servers, and compare their numbers with the best of them.
The website reveals that, on average, League of Legends players have spent 988 hours feeding, tower diving and carrying, and that a total number of over 2.4 million players have taken the test until now.
If you think spending 1000 hours or the equivalent of 44 straight days climbing to the top of the ladder or crawling in the muck of ELO hell in League of Legends is much, then think again, as the king of LoL time is currently a user who clocked in 353 days of play time and who is most likely playing directly from the Matrix.
Hot on his tracks are some other European players who registered 337 and 329 days, and the North American competition is coming in close with 322 and 318 total days of play time.
To put things in perspective, the first recorded long-distance swimmer to have made it over the Atlantic, Benoit Lecomte, accomplished his daring feat over the course of 73 days. And in the first manned mission to the Moon, the Apollo 11 astronauts took little over three days to plant their feet on Earth's natural satellite, lacking enough inspiration to snap a quick selfie in the process.
However, while the actual distance that was covered through swimming is debatable in the case of Lecomte, and the brave souls who ventured to the moon did not actually plant their feet as much as their boots there, we know for certain that, in the case of LoL players, their hands were firmly planted on the mouse and the entirety of the time was spent hunting for kills, which just goes to show that gaming is more taxing than swimming across an ocean or going to the moon is.