November 9, 2010 was a highly anticipated date for many gaming fans, as Call of Duty: Black Ops was finally released. The Call of Duty series has been able to ride a wave of popularity over time, and the previous Modern Warfare release helped create much anticipation for Black Ops' introduction. Most followers of the gaming genre know that Black Ops is popular, but just how popular is it? Some recent numbers released by Activision help put the game's immense popularity in perspective.

Since the game was released on November 9, Call of Duty: Black Ops players have logged over 600 million hours playing the game online. In case you were wondering, that equals 68,000 years. On average, each Black Ops player plays the game for 87 minutes per day. If that doesn't sound like a lot of time, consider that Facebook users spend an average of 55 minutes per day surfing the popular social network. 

On a daily basis, the amount of users partaking in Black Ops online play could fill 83 of the largest stadiums worldwide. Not only is the game being played with at a furious pace; it is being heavily researched as well. Call of Duty: Black Ops has been one of the five hottest trending topics on Twitter, joining the ranks of popular subjects such as the Boston Celtics, Mel Gibson, the Grammy Awards, the Chilean Miner's Rescue, and Diego Maradona.

Activision also released statistics on the total number of gamers registered as Black Ops players, and they offer even more amazing comparisons. In its time on the market, the number of Black Ops players is greater than the viewing audience for the season finale of "Lost," ABC's hit show, as well as the average viewing audience for major league baseball's 2010 World Series. The number of players also exceeds the combined viewing audiences during the entire week of December 6 of the following late night talk shows: Conan O'Brien, Craig Ferguson, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon, and Jimmy Kimmel. 

Popular magazines are not exempt from a Black Ops comparison, either. The game's total registered players outguns the combined circulation of ESPN the Magazine, GQ, Entertainment Weekly, Maxim, Playboy, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and Sports Illustrated.

Want some geographical perspective? If you took the total population of registered Black Ops players and gave them their own state to live in, it would be the third largest in the United States. On an international level, the number of Black Ops players exceeds the populations of countries like the Netherlands, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Austria, Greece, Chile, and Portugal.

Besides the action-packed fun that the game provides, Call of Duty: Black Ops' online community offers players a social outlet to interact with others of like interests. While sites like Facebook and Twitter are more popular than ever, you could say that the Black Ops community is its own social network.

For more on this topic, visit http://investor.activision.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=538848

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