Battlefield Heroes passed the two million player mark in September, prompting EA to celebrate with the Heroes of the Fall game update. Now at three million, the company has released the new Sunset Showdown map. Set on an island with only one control point, it looks like the sort of place many people will die in. Then again, any shooter map looks like that to me.

"Battlefield Heroes continues to grow fast with well over 50,000 new players joining us every week. Our players have already logged in over 1,300 years' worth of game time and nearly 300million kills over 150million five-minute game rounds," said Ben Cousins, General Manager, Battlefield Heroes team. "The vast majority of our players play for free, but if they want to customize their character or enhance their game with weapon upgrades or widgets then there is a cool item for them in our store."

Visit the official Battlefield Heroes website to play the game for free.

With over 2 billion applications downloaded across 20 categories in 77 countries, Apple is probably right when they call The App Store the "world's most popular applications store." Now that they've surpassed the 100,000 application mark, perhaps they can get around to making it a bit easier to find something useful.

"The App Store, now with over 100,000 applications available, is clearly a major differentiator for millions of iPhone and iPod touch customers around the world," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "The iPhone SDK created the first great platform for mobile applications and our customers are loving all of the amazing apps our developers are creating."

I'm not saying there aren't a bunch of really great apps to be had, especially in the popular games category, but any store housing more than 100,000 titles is bound to be a real bitch to navigate.

So congratulations to Apple for this amazing achievement. We'd break things down by category to see how many of those 100,000 titles are games, but frankly trying to do so gives us a mild headache.

KingsIsle is decorating the world of Wizard City and promising a "special surprise" for all players of Wizard101 this month as they celebrate one year of card-based, free-to-play magic duels for the whole family. Response to the title has been overwhelming, with more than five million players signing up to give the game a spin since it launched in September of 2008.

"Quality family entertainment doesn't have to be expensive," said J. Todd Coleman, creative director of Wizard101. "The success of Wizard101 clearly shows that it is possible to produce a fun and challenging game that is both wallet-friendly and appropriate for all ages – and that it's something people are looking for in these tough economic times."

While I'm not sure these tough times are quite as tough as they were a year ago, there's definitely something to be said for a game you can sit down with your child and play until he or she gets so engrossed you can slip away to play big people games in the other room.

The cartoon version of DICE's award-winning combat sandbox game slipped quietly into open beta last month, and the lure of the word 'free' worked it's magic, bringing in the hungry, tired, huddled masses yearning for something they didn't have to pay for if they didn't want to.

"The team is really proud to have hit 1 million registrations at this early stage," said Ben Cousins, General Manager, Battlefield Heroes Team. "Creating a character and gameplay experience that is totally yours is what sets this game apart – your hero can be anything from a bazooka-toting pirate, a grenade-throwing ninja or even a mime assassin!"

Now that the reviews have begun trickling out and EA has seen fit to issue a press release, those numbers will only grow.

Free-to-play massively multiplayer online games generally attract huge numbers, and with Runes of Magic's strong resemblance to World of Warcraft it comes as no surprise that their player base across North America and Europe has sprung up so quickly.

"We at Frogster have been looking for a real hit title for two years and are happy to have found one this last year with Runes of Magic." Summed up Andreas Weidenhaupt, Chief Licensing Officer of Frogster Interactive Pictures AG and CEO of Frogster Online Gaming GmbH.

Frogster also announced today that they've teamed up with BitRaider to stream the game in North America, making it easier than ever for new players to hop onboard without having to worry about long download times, playing within minutes instead of hours. Look for the BitRaider version to be available in the next few weeks at RunesofMagic.com.