Traditional family fun appears to have gone out of the window this Christmas.

Not only did thousands give up Boxing Day to go shopping, but more than 1m gaming fans apparently spent the festive season signing up for Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR).

The massively-multiplayer online game (MMO) reported today that it snared its first 1m users in just three days after its 20 December launch.

Those stats mean that the game, which allows players to play as Jedi and Sith lords in an enormous online world, is now the fastest-growing MMO in history - technically beating established foes including Warcraft.

Since its launch the 1m players inside SWTOR have racked up a total of 60m game-hours, publisher Electronic Arts reported. That's equivalent to watching the six Star Wars films back-to-back about 4m times.

More than 260m quests have already been completed, and 3 billion enemies vanquished.

"We view the early success of Star Wars as an indication of a healthy MMO market," said Baird Equity Research analyst Colin Sebastian in a note released on Tuesday according to Gamasutra.

"While there is likely some shifting of usage from Activision's World of Warcraft, we see a viable market for multiple million-user MMOs in the U.S. and Europe."

SWTOR is a subscription-based online game, and prices start at £8.99 per month in the UK.

Over the launch weekend hundreds of people joined in a lightsabre-themed flashmob in Times Square. Take a look below.