During GDC last week in San Francisco research firms NPD, iResearch and Digi-Capital held a talk on digital games sales and revealed some interesting numbers on the space. According to data revealed during the event, digital game and downloadable content sales are growing at a rate of 33 percent year over year in the United States and Europe, while spending in China is expected to grow 10 percent annually for the next three years. Asia is going to be the most dominate region in the world when it comes to online and mobile games by 2016, according to the speakers.

Finland-based free-to-play game studio Supercell is valued at around $800 million after its latest funding round. The developer behind the hit F2P mobile titles Clash of Clans and Hay Day sold off between 16 - 20 percent of its common shares for an estimated $100 - $150 million. The word on the street is that the company's latest investors include Institutional Venture Partners, Atomico and Index Ventures. The company allegedly got close to being valued at an even $1 billion, but fell just short of the mark.

Harmonix has secured funding for three of its upcoming products from Colorado-based capital venture firm The Foundry Group, according to Polygon. The firm generally invests in companies that are in the business of "human computer interaction," and its last high profile investment land at Zynga.

The PC Gaming Alliance, a not-for-profit industry consortium dedicated to evangelizing the PC Gaming space delivered annual custom research results to PCGA members, and shared portions of the findings with the press at a news conference during GDC this week.

Veteran analyst Billy Pidgeon says that games like Tomb Raider need 5 - 10 million sales to be successful for Square Enix and that IPs that cost hundreds of millions of dollars need a minimum Metacritic scores of 8.5 and the aforementioned range of sales. Pidgeon sees a difficult year ahead for Square Enix, who predicted earlier this week a very tough year of losses despite decent sales of its latest Hitman title and the new Tomb Raider game.

Atari founder Nolan Bushnell tells All Things D that the smart money is no longer going into smartphones as the industry shifts to focus on new platforms.

"All the money's out," Bushnell told the publication. "Do I really want to do a mobile game that's one of 300,000, where discoverability is everything? You really have to have a little more sizzle on the steak."

The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) today applauded the efforts of retailers in the United States for continuing to show record levels of enforcement of video game and DVD ratings. The praise comes in response to the results of a Federal Trade Commission survey released today. That survey found that video game retailers turned away unaccompanied 13- to 16-year-olds who attempted to purchase Mature-rated games 87 percent of the time and turned away under-aged children who attempted to purchase R-rated or unrated DVDs 70 percent of the time.

The Federal Trade Commission today released the results of its "Secret Shopper Survey" to test whether retailers were doing their part to keep adult entertainment out of the hands of children. The results of that survey are here, but the take-away is that retailers are continuing to self-police - without government intervention, I might add - just who buys video games, music and other entertainment.

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.

A research report on GameStop from equity research firm Baird Equity Research predicts that the games retailer will miss estimates for Q4 earnings. The company is set to release Q4 earnings next Thursday, along with initial guidance for fiscal year 2013. Baird Equity points to weak hardware sales and software prices that are " under pressure." GameStop could see a boost from the next Xbox announcement, the E3 trade show in June and launch of new hardware in the fall, according to the firm.

Tax relief for the video games industry in the United Kingdom has been delayed because the European Commission was not able to approve the Cultural Test provisions of the plan, according to this GamesIndustry International report. The Cultural Test requires those applying for tax credits to promote the culture of the UK in various ways.

UK games industry trade groups UKIE and TIGA expressed their disappointment in the news, but were optimistic that the government would continue to be committed to tax breaks for games developers.

Long-time Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello resigned from the company today and will leave EA by the end of the month. Former CEO and executive chairman Larry Probst will oversee EA's operations until a suitable replacement can be found. Riccitiello will also leave his position on the EA board. He will receive 24 months salary as part of his departure deal.

Riccitiello oversaw EA's growth from 1997 to 2004, then leaving for venture capital firm Elevation Partners. He rejoined in 2007 to take on the role of CEO.

Whatever anyone thinks of SimCity, the proof is in the early numbers, and those early sales numbers from the first two weeks of the game's release show that the game is doing pretty well despite a rough online launch week. EA said that during those first two weeks of release SimCity sold more than 1.1. million copies. The company said that the majority of those copies were sold through digital channels. This does not surprise me at all considering that everyone I asked today said they had made a digital purchase.

While Bethesda Softworks' popular role-playing game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim has been out for over a year on various platforms (PC, Xbox 360, and PS3), the company says that it is far from done with the game and that downloadable content is helping the company keep the RPG relevant to this day and make some money in the process. Speaking to UK publication MCV, Bethesda European MD Sean Brennan is using retailers to help push the game’s DLC (Dawnguard, Hearthfire and Dragonborn) on Xbox 360.

As part of an interview with NowGamer, TT Fusion’s lead dev on Lego City Undercover, Loz Doyle, says that the company has no interest in creating a Skylanders-style Lego game that uses toys and the Wii U GamePad’s NFC chip. The Wii U controller has a built-in NFC chip which allows toys and cards to be scanned into a game. Skylanders uses the same technology with its mini figures and its portal peripheral.

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.

Sony has decided to unload its holdings in mobile game developer and publisher DeNa, according to this Reuters report. Sony has reportedly sold all of its shares in the company to Japanese-based investment firm Nomura Securities for $438 million.

Speaking to MCV recently Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot stated the obvious: the Wii U needs to sell more units. The topic came up because Guillemot was talking about all the resources his company has green lighted for Ubisoft Montreal - the studio developing Watch Dogs. That game will also be coming to the Wii U, amongst other platforms.

"We think Wii U is a great machine. But it just has to sell more," Guillemot said.

Update: We didn't have to wait long to hear Vblank Entertainment's thoughts on WiiWare. Speaking to Nintendo Life exclusively in an interview to be published in full over the weekend, Brian Provinciano called the WiiWare release a $20,000 gift to Wii fans. He asks everyone to go buy it so he can recoup some of those costs.

Earlier in the week we reported that Nintendo announced plans to bring the budget minded Wii Mini to the United Kingdom after launching it in Canada back in December. One of the things we did not know was just how well the scaled down console was performing at retail in Canada. Popular Nintendo-focused web site Nintendo World Report offers some insight on that today. According to NWR, the Nintendo Mini has sold 35,700 units across Canada - from launch to January 31.

Apparently consumers just love microtransactions so much that EA has decided to put them in every game it makes going forward. Those ideas sprang forth from the mouth of CFO Blake Jorgensen today during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference - as reported by GameSpot.

GamesBeat is reporting that the Baltimore, Maryland studio that used to be headed up by veteran game developer Brian Reynolds has been shut down by social games publisher Zynga. The studio is responsible for CityVille 2, which Zynga has discontinued. A Zynga spokesperson said the company is trying to place those that were laid off from its Baltimore studio in other studios within the company.

The NPD Group released retail video game sales figures in the United States for January 2013, revealing that Activison's Call of Duty: Black Ops II remained the best-selling title in the region. The top five best selling games for January 2013 were Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Far Cry 3, Just Dance 4, NBA 2K13, and Madden NFL 13. Sales were inflated slightly because NPD Group counted five weeks instead of four to comply with the National Retail Federation calendar.

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.

Microsoft announced that it sold 281,000 Xbox 360 units in January in the United States, up from the 270,000 units it sold in the same period a year ago. The company claims that these sales represented $338 million in total retail spending during the month. This is the 25th straight month where the Xbox 360 has been the top-selling console in the U.S.

Consumers in the United States spent a total of $338 million on Xbox 360 consoles and accessories during the month, Microsoft said. The Xbox 360 represents 44 percent of the video game market currently.

DealNews, a web site dedicated to bringing you all the latest news on all the hottest items past and present makes a pretty bold prediction: After Sony makes its big announcement (it is presumed) about the PlayStation 4, the PlayStation 3 will see a price drop of 64 percent at retail. They base this price drop percentage on historical retail data for the PS3 versus the PS2 and the Wii U versus the Wii. Here is the crux of the argument:

The PBS Idea Channel has launched its latest episode on YouTube which focuses on virtual currency and the future. The latest episode is called "Are Bitcoins and Unusual Hats the Future of Currency?" and focuses on the popular virtual currency and the commerce that occurs in virtual spaces like Team Fortress 2.

It also explores some of the problems that can occur when your currency might be one tick away from a clever hacker figuring out how to put those virtual coins in a virtual bag with dollar signs on it..

As part of a New York Times article (as reported by Polygon) on the study of violent video games, a new study emerged showing that a decline in violent crime, even as sales of violent video games more than doubled.

Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg warns investors that the next Call of Duty will sell less than Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

"The Call of Duty franchise continues to set the bar for innovation and we expect the new Call of Duty game in development for 2013 to raise that bar even higher," Hirshberg told investors during a conference call to discuss financial results this week.

No doubt Activision is delighted that over 100 million Skylanders toys have been sold across the United States. The company announced the milestone at the Toy Fair 2013, reports Destructoid. Activision says that the Skylanders franchise (Skylanders and Skylanders Giants) across all platforms has generated over $500 million since its launch in 2011.