Major League Gaming announced a whopping 334 percent year-over-year growth in live streaming video viewers of its gaming competition. According to the pro gaming event company, more than 11.7 million unique viewers tuned in to watch the four 2012 MLG Pro Circuit Championships online, compared to the 2011 Pro Circuit season which drew 3.5 million unique online viewers. They also claim that more than 15 million hours of live online video were watched during Pro Circuit weekends by MLG's audience.

Another day, another milestone met for Mojang's ultra popular sandbox building game, Minecraft. It has managed to surpass the 8 million sales mark on the PC platform, according to a tweet from Mojang co-founder and Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson.

"The PC version of Minecraft just passed 8 million sales," said series Persson via Twitter.

"My face is making grinning sounds, so I assume it's grinning," he added.

New sales figures from Microsoft reveal that its ultra popular Halo franchise has generated nearly $3 billion in revenue since launch, with more than 46 million Halo games sold. Halo: Reach was responsible for around $200 million of that revenue in just 24 hours across Europe and the US, with Halo 3 managing to bring $170 million in the US on day one. Halo 2 was no slouch either; it raked in $125 million.

Take-Two Interactive today released its earnings report for the three months ended September 30, posting booming revenues for the quarter, but warning that it would fall drastically short of its full year projections. It posted net revenues of $273.1 million, up from $107 million from the same period a year ago. During that same period a year ago Civilization V: Game of the Year Edition helped drive the company's revenues.

Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has managed to do something that no other Xbox Live Arcade has been able to do in the history of Xbox Live: beat a serious AAA retail first-person shooter. Xbox Live activity for the week of October 15 shows that the Xbox Live Arcade dentition of the game managed to beat some pretty powerful competition including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, FIFA Soccer 13, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Borderlands 2, Halo: Reach, Battlefield 3, and many other popular games.

Obsidian Entertainment's Project Eternity Kickstarter has hit a major milestone in its last few hours - it has surpassed Double Fine's Adventure game Kickstarter to become the highest funded game project in history. The crowd funding campaign for Obsidian's old-school RPG now sits at just a little over $3.5 million with just nine more hours to go. They hit this number with the help of 68,207 backers. Originally Obsidian was looking for $1.1 million. Obviously all this extra money was driven by promises made for meeting certain stretch goal milestones.

Riot Games has released an infographic that illustrates why its MOBA title, League of Legends, is the most played game in the entire world.

According to data on that colorful infographic, League of Legends has a total of 70 million registered Summoner names, 32 million active monthly users, and 12 million daily active users. The infographic also claims that over 1 billion game hours are logged every month in League of Legends.

Welcome to the platinum club, Resident Evil 6 and FIFA 13. According to word from Capcom, worldwide initial shipments of Resident Evil 6 have surpassed 4.5 million. This is the highest number of shipments for a single title, according to Capcom. The game was released on multiple platforms on October 2.

World domination continues for the house that Steve Jobs built. In just three days of being on sale around the world, Apple proves that its iPhone is still the coolest cat on the block - at least according to the droves of consumers who continue to buy it. Apple announced this morning that in the first three days of launch it has already sold five million iPhone 5 phones around the world.

This shouldn't come as too much of a shock to anyone: Guild Wars 2 has managed to sell two million copies in its first two weeks of availability. The numbers come from publisher NCsoft who also said that the game has hit the peak concurrent user milestone of 400,000 users at one time.

Based on EA's own internal estimates, sell-through for Madden NFL 13 was up 8 percent year-over-year on console platforms with more than 1.65 million units sold in week one (Aug. 28-Sept. 3) to mark what the company calls its best start ever on this console generation. Last week, EA announced that Madden NFL 13 had set a new release-day record on current generation consoles as well.

While it's not much of a shock, it is still a good sign that Madden as a franchise is strong at retail and as popular as ever with consumers. Electronic Arts claims that Madden NFL 13 has managed to sell-through 900,000 units in its first 24 hours of release. The company said that the number represented a 7 percent year-over-year increase on HD platforms. Madden NFL 13 also set a day one online usage record with a 28 percent increase in peak simultaneous users over last year’s first day.

Guild Wars 2 is finding early success thanks to customers willing to pre-order the game in exchange for early access. ArenaNet's multiplayer-focused online RPG saw 1 million pre-orders, according to C&VG. On top of that, during the "headstart phase" the Guild Wars 2 servers saw a peak of 400,000 concurrent users, according to publisher NCSoft.

According to a tweet from Mojang business developer Daniel Kaplan, the PC version of the company's ultra popular world-building, Zombie fighting game Minecraft has sold over 7 million copies since its launch.

"More than 7 million Minecraft (pc) copies sold!" Kaplan tweeted today.

This news is yet another indicator that Minecraft is going to make Mojang and its creator Markus 'Notch' Persson twice as much money as it did in 2011.

UK-based Jagex Software announced today that its free-to-play massively multiplayer online adventure game RuneScape has hit a major milestone: 200 million registered player accounts worldwide. Jagex claims that over the last 10 years, RuneScape has garnered the support of over 200 million players from more than 150 countries around the world since its launch as a 3D web based MMO in 2001. They say that, if RuneScape were a country, it would be the 5th largest population in the world.

How do you get a multiplayer app about drawing pictures with a friend to be downloaded 20 million times? We have no idea, and it seems like the company that makes Draw Something has no clue as to why the app is really popular either. OMGPOP's CEO Dan Porter told Business Insider that the app has racked up over 20 million downloads in only five weeks - it was released on February 1.

An Indian youth recently spent over 40 hours straight playing Grand Theft Auto IV, and instead of a one-way ticket to ReStart, he received congratulations and a spot in the record books.

That’s because Chirantan Patnaik of Mumbai set a Guinness World Record with his gameathon, surpassing the previous GTA IV-specific endurance mark of 28 hours and one minute, which was set by a U.S. gamer last year. Patnaik lasted a total of 40 hours and 20 minutes reports ZeeNews, with Guinness rules mandating a 10-minute break every hour.

Patnaik prepared for his binge by running and practicing yoga. He added that avoiding coffee and eating dates (the fruit) helped him stay alert during the session. An avid gamer, this was the first time Patnaik had played GTA IV.

Indian gaming portal Zapak sponsored the event and provided observers. The company’s COO, Rohit Sharma, offered the following about Patnaik:

We have always believed in the potential of Indian gamers. Chirantan's success is a proud moment for the Indian gaming industry. This will encourage more youngsters to take gaming seriously.

Last week Google paid homage to the 25th anniversary of Tetris by rendering its familiar logo in Tetris-like blocks.

While the gaming community by and large appreciated Google's nod to the groundbreaking game created by Alexey Pajitnov, not everyone was so pleased. The Washington Times reports that some websites have criticized Google for recognizing Tetris while ignoring the 65th anniversary of D-Day. At the conservative NewsBusters, Warner Todd Huston wrote:

It's far more important to Google to celebrate the anniversary of the invention of the video game Tetris than to memorialize D-Day. It just warms the heart, doesn't it?

I have to say, though, that this is no departure for Google, a firm that finds it nearly impossible to post images celebrating any American holidays or important milestones in American history. So, what we have here is just one more example of Google's essentially anti-American policies.

At WorldNetDaily, Drew Zahn echoed the criticism:

Google has a history of ignoring major American patriotic and religious holidays, while honoring Remembrance Day in Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom, the Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, Halloween and other observances.

A Google spokesperson told the Washington Times:

[Google] special logos tend to be lighthearted and often scientific in nature.... We do not believe we can convey the appropriate somber tone through this medium to mark holidays like Memorial Day.

Via: GameCulture