Wargaming has over 35 million gamers around the world engaging in virtual warfare with its free-to-play World of Tanks game. With World of Warplanes and World of Battleships in development, the game publisher is focusing on eSports. At the International Ural Steel Championship 2012 Grand Finals, held on September 16 at CSKA Sport Arena in Moscow, three Russian teams became the champions of the World of Tanks final showdown. After a number of intense clashes, The RED: Rush Unity team took the Champion’s title away from The RED-Z GRA with a 3 to 0 victory on the Lakeville map, while third place went to Virtus.Pro ACES.

With George Lucas taking flight with his new Red Tails movie in theaters, his LucasArts division continues to have success with Star Wars games. With over four years of development, a team of 200 employees and a reported budget of $80 million, Electronic Arts has come under fire of late for BioWare’s massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. But Michael Pachter, videogame analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities, said the game has already sold 2 million copies worldwide. And the game is already a huge success and money generator for EA, as well as licensor LucasArts.

LOS ANGELES -- The second annual 3D Gaming Summit: Gaming and Beyond expanded its scope to include fast-growing segments of the games industry like cloud gaming, mobile gaming social gaming, and the impact augmented reality will have on games moving forward. Highlights of the jam-packed one day conference included an Opening Keynote Interview by David Maisel, Senior Advisor to Rovio creator Angry Birds, conducted by John Gaudiosi, Gaming Summit Senior Content Advisor & Co-Founder of Gamerlive.tv; and a Featured Interview with Vince Zampella, (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare) General Manger of Respawn Entertainment, conducted by USA Today's Video Game Editor Mike Snider.

LOS ANGELES -- Playboy's Hugh Hefner and his now ex-fiancee Crystal Harris might be calling off their wedding but their humble abode, better known as the Playboy Mansion, was the site for the best party of this year's E3, in our humble opinion. Bigpoint, developers of massive multiplayer online games such as Battlestar Galactica Online, Fast and Furious and Dark Orbit celebrated its 200th million user in a big way by throwing by far the sexiest and most exclusive party on the last day of E3 and GamerLive.TV was the only video crew allowed in to capture all its glory in 3D. Check out all the fun and the girls in this exclusive video.

When it comes to video games, Valve was one of the early game studios to emphasize the importance of interactive narrative in shooters like Half-Life. Storytelling remains an integral part of all of Valve’s games. And Erik Wolpaw is one of the top writers at the Seattle game studio.

A virtual farm attracting up to 83 million aspiring farmers monthly has video game developers scrambling to find ways to plough the booming popularity of games on social networks. Sites like Facebook, which has an estimated 400 million users, and MySpace, with about 100 million users, are driving a social gaming craze that was in the spotlight at this month's 2010 Game Developers Conference (GDC).