NPD Group's recent survey manged to investigate the niche segment of the gaming market that is extreme gaming, together with six other segments that the games industry has categorized gamers like us under. Feeling like a can of peaches at your local convenient mart? Well, welcome to new, modernized, cash-driven games industry, folks. Find out where'd you fit in among the 20,000 sampled at the full story.

A recent study done by market research firm Parks Associates revealed that the growth of the MMORPG industry may lie in free-to-play MMORPGs. How come? Because more gamers find themselves interested in the prospect of a free game. Learn more after the jump!

Eidos and Funcom have announced that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures has been doing well. According to reports the game has already surpassed 700,000 subscribers and is still going strong in multiple countries. To find out more, head on over to the full article!

Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures for the PC is still rampaging on the top of the NPD PC video game sales charts in North America. To find out what other games made it into the list, head on over to the full article.

With the great response the community gave Funcom's Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, it's no surprise that it has topped the US PC sales charts. To find out more, head on over to the full article by clicking on the "read more" link below.

With everyone talking about the dismal state of PC gaming nowadays, SOE President John Smedley decided to share his own opinion regarding the matter. He went against the grain and expressed his two cents about the positive state that the unconventional gaming platform is currently in. More about what Smedley said in our full article.

The NPD group has announced that it will be compiling reports on online game subscriptions for paying customers of the service. The company is already known for its North American video game industry software and hardware sales reports so this new service will probably delight business owners and analysts in the online gaming industry. For more on this, be sure to head on over to the full article.

National Purchase Diary or NPD has released the top ten bestselling games for the week of June 2 and the results may surprise you. While the market research firm has had its share of criticisms from other industry analysts, a lot of people still turn to them for the latest sales figures.

The top two slots were claimed by World of Warcraft and World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade respectively. It seems that no amount of Wife/Girlfriend/Parent aggro can stop this juggernaut.

Furthermore, casual gamers have claimed the third slot with Sims 2 Seasons as it even outsold Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars which nabbed fourth and Halo 2 ending only on fifth place.

Check out the complete list to see if any of your favorite games managed to grab a slot.

Top Ten Games for the week of June 2:

1. World Of Warcraft - Blizzard
2. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade - Blizzard
3. The Sims 2 Seasons - Electronic Arts
4. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars - Electronic Arts
5. Halo 2 - Microsoft
6. The Sims 2 Celebration Stuff - Electronic Arts
7. Civilization IV - 2K Games
8. The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
9. Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows Of Angmar - Turbine/Midway
10. Half-Life 2: Episode 1 - Valve/Electronic Arts

With all the recent releases of video games, it appears that the established IPs are still dominating the charts. When will we be seeing more new IPs join the list? Be sure to keep checking back here for the latest development on QJ.NET.

 

It's official, the number one selling PC title in both Europe and the US is Codemasters and Turbine Inc's The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadow of Angmar. Recent industry reports from NPD, Chart-Track, GfK and Media Control have shown that it has outsold all other PC games across North America, Germany, United Kingdom, and France.

Midway chief marketing officer Steve Allison spoke about their product's success saying that it is "the most successful North American pre-order program in Midway's history. As the positive reports and reviews continue to come in, gamers are settling into the game and experiencing Middle-earth as never before." The positive reports and reviews he mentioned come from pretty big names such as GameSpy, which awarded the game an Editor's Choice award and a rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Computer and Video Games gave it a 9.2 out of 10 while U.S.-based GameDaily rated it at 9 out of 10.

Be sure to check out the game if you haven't bought it already, since there has already been a lot of talk that this is THE World of Warcraft killer. We'll have to wait and see though as more developments happen in the industry before we can say for certain.

  

Move over, Azeroth! It was reported last week that Turbine Inc.'s The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar title had been UK's top-seller. What wasn't mentioned - and has just come to light today via an NPD market report - is that LotRO had beaten some rather formidable odds on its way to the top, by way of Blizzard Entertainment's World of Warcraft MMORPG.

Going into details on last week's top five, we find LotRO's standard pack at the top spot, with the game's special edition release taking second place. Third and fourth place are occupied by WoW and its Burning Crusade expansion pack, with the fifth-largest selling PC game being The Sims 2: Seasons expansion pack, released last March.

What isn't clear is if this NPD report is based on numbers from the UK region alone, or if it also includes sales from North America - LotRO was released to both regions on April 24. Whatever the case, it's good to see that LotRO is off to a strong start, while WoW is enjoying strong sales even after being up and running since 2004.