On May 3 Apple said that it was very close to hitting 50 billion app download mark on its App store. Today the company announced that its App Store has surpassed the milestone - which they point out does not include re-downloads of apps or updates by users. While we do not know the exact data and time this milestone was met, we do know who the person was that downloaded the 5 billionth app: Ohio's Brandon Ashmore. Apple awarded him a $10,000 App Store gift card, and his app of choice - the word game Say the Same Thing by Space Inch.

Mobile and social game developer PikPok announced that its newest original mobile game, Into the Dead has managed to sail past the 10 millionth download mark. The game was released in December of last year and is available on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Android. The game joins another PikPok title past 10 million downloads: Flick Kick Football. That game is contributing to the Flick Kick series of games, which has seen over 20 million downloads as of April.

Apple announced today that its app store is nearing the 50 billion app download mark. Since its launch, the Apple App Store has seen almost 50 billion downloads of various apps for its iOS devices. Apple also announced that the person who downloads the 50 billionth app will receive a $10,000 App Store gift card, while $500 gift cards will be given to the individuals who download the first 50 after that milestone.

Whether you have your doubts about Trion Worlds' Defiance - a first of its kind MMO transmedia project that lets what happens in the television show of the same name on the SyFy Network affect what happens in the virtual world you are playing - the game seems to be doing well within its first month or so of operation. According to Trion Worlds, over one million people have registered accounts for the game since it launched on April 3.

The game is certainly helped by being available on three platforms: the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC..

Minecraft developer Mojang announced that Minecraft - Pocket Edition for Android and iOS devices, has sold more than 10 million copies to-date. The portable version of Mojang's popular sandbox building game joins other versions of the game - PC and XBLA which have sold millions upon millions of copies to-date. It just goes to show that people never get tired of a game that is decent and is constantly updated by its creators.

"We are very thankful to all the support that we have gotten and people playing and talking about our game," said Mojang's Daniel Kaplan.

City State Entertainment announced that it managed to raise well over $2 million in crowd funding for its upcoming MMORPG project, Camelot Unchained. The "TriRealm" RvR-focused MMORPG will also receive $3 million in additional funding which includes $2 million from studio co-founder and online game industry pioneer Mark Jacobs. Pledges are still being accepted via PayPal on the game's official site.

Cloud Imperium Games announced that its upcoming space simulation game Star Citizen has raised over $9 million in crowd-funding, raising a cool $1 million since the middle of February. The game, being developed by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, managed to raise $2.1 million during its Kickstarter campaign, with the rest being raised via the game' s official site.

Dark Souls has now sold more than 2.3 million copies worldwide, according to developer From Software (by way of NeoGAF and Gpara). From Software president Eiichi Nakajima announced the sales figures on stage this week at an event for Japanese press, attended by Gpara. He also announced that the sequel to the popular hardcore action RPG, Dark Souls 2 would be coming to the Xbox 360.

Just how influential and popular is Minecraft creator and Mojang co-founder Markus "Notch" Persson? Well he is apparently the second most influential person in the world right behind Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in Time Magazine's 2013 Time 100 Poll. Voting for the poll ends today, with the final list to be chosen by Time editors and revealed on April 18.

inXile Entertainment's isometric role-playing game managed to raise $4.1 million at the close of its Kickstarter campaign this weekend, making it the most well-funded video game in Kickstarter's history. The Kickstarter, which ended last night, generated a total of $4,188,927 from 74,405 backers. That is 455 percent more than the $900,000 that the developer asked for at the start.

This weekend the Kickstarter for Richard Garriott's latest game, Shroud of the Avatar: Lost Virtues, raking in $1.9 million from backers. Adding that number with the money it raised from PayPal pledges on the Shroud of the Avatar Website, Portalarium sailed past the $2 million dollar mark. Over twenty thousand people backed the game on Kickstarter.

Having hit its latest stretch goal of $3.5 million for Torment: Tides of Numenera, developer inXile has officially brought Obsidian Entertainment's Chris Avellone on board to help with the game. Why is this such a milestone for fans of this role-playing game? Because while at Interplay's Black Isle Studios, Chris Avellone worked on the original AD&D title, Planescape: Torment.

The Kickstarter page for the project offers the following message to fans as the Kickstarter has just a few days left until it is all done:

Richard Garriott's Portalarium announced that it is now accepting PayPal payments for the Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues crowd funding campaign. The PayPal option is available on the Shroud of the Avatar site.

Just how much money has been pledged to game projects so far on Kickstarter? According to data released by the popular crowd funding platform, right around $107.6 million. Since the site's launch four years ago, more than 633,242 backers have pledged to over 4,500 Games projects, nearly 1,000 of these were pledged to in the last year.

With 18 more days to go, Richard Garriott's Kickstarter campaign for Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues has surpassed its $1 million funding goal. With that challenge out of the way, Garriott and his studio Portalarium have added a few stretch goals. As of right now, the Kickstarter has generated $1,031,716 from nearly 15,000 backers.

Richard Garriott's Kickstarter campaign for Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is within striking distance of being fully funded. The campaign has generated $905,628 of the $1 million in funding it needs, and a new announcement today from his studio Portalarium will likely put it over the required threshold.

Microsoft, who is not all that good at adding free-to-play games to its Xbox Live service for Xbox 360 (there are only a couple at this point), is probably happy that it allowed the free-to-play and kid-friendly MOBA game Happy Wars to launch on the platform in October of last year. As of today the game has been downloaded over 2 million times, according to maker Toylogic. While the game is completely free to download and play, players can purchase "Happy tickets" with real money to upgrade equipment and buy vanity items.

InXile has managed to raise over $2.1 million dollars in just a few short days for its spiritual sequel to the hit RPG Planescape: Torment. Initially the company was looking to raise $900,000, but that number was surpassed in the first six hours of the crowd funding campaign. Torment: Tides of Numenera is a single-player role-playing game based on designer and writer Monte Cook's new tabletop role-playing game, Numenera. The game will be distributed DRM-free for Windows (PC), Mac, and Linux and will be available in English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish.

inXile raised millions with its first Kickstarter campaign for Wasteland 2, and within six hours of launching its latest crowd-funding campaign for the spiritual sequel to Planescape: Torment, it has hit its goal of $900,000. It looks like they'll be spending the next 30 days left in the campaign to come up with crazy stretch goals. Torment: Tides of Numenera is a single-player role-playing game, and a sort-of spiritual successor to Interplay / Black Isle Studios hit CRPG Planescape: Torment.

CCP Games announced that its long-running subscription-based sci-fi MMO EVE Online has surpassed the 500,000 subscriber mark worldwide for the first time in the game’s history. The milestone is a major one in the game's ten years of operation and follows the December 4 release of EVE Online: Retribution, the game’s 18th free expansion. CCP says that this latest expansion is its most successful ever. Also in December, EVE Online relaunched in China with new partner Tiancity to bring the game to a massive new audience where it has been thriving ever since.

Free-to-play mobile game Puzzle & Dragons from Japanese developer and publisher GungHo Online Entertainment supposedly generated around $65 million during January - or about $2 million dollars a day. These startling sales figures come from data collected by Japanese industry consultant Serkan Toto, who reports that the puzzle and RPG hybrid title has generated around $65 million in sales on iOS and Android in Japan last month.

Rovio's Angry Birds Trilogy has sold over one million copies worldwide, according to developer Rovio and publisher Activision. The duo also announced that the game would be coming to the Wii U and Wii later this year.

Angry Birds Trilogy was released in September 2012 for Xbox 360 with Kinect support, PlayStation 3 with Move support and Nintendo 3DS. The compilation offers three games - Angry Birds, Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio, along with extra content such as additional levels, added features and brand new interactive backgrounds and spiffy new animations.

Kill Screen Daily points out some inspiring news for gamers in general and for Legend of Zelda fans in particular: Dark Horse Comics and Nintendo's collaborative hardcover book on the history of Hyrule, "The Legend of Zelda: Hyrule Historia," is the top selling book on Amazon and has managed to top the