Editors at Game Developer magazine have released the results of its eighth annual Game Developer Salary Survey, calculating an average American game industry salary in 2008 of $79,000, a 7% increase from 2007's figure of nearly $74,000.

Zynga, a developer of social games, added two individuals to its executive team. Steven Lurie has been named general manager of Zynga’s Mobile Group and Roy Sehgal has been named general manager of a recently created game studio that has yet to be officially named. Lurie will spearhead Zynga’s mobile division and will oversee development of all iPhone applications and be responsible for new digital revenue opportunities. Sehgal will be responsible for building out a studio within Zynga.

Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) and Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA) (NASDAQ: DISCB) (NASDAQ: DISCK) today announced an agreement to form a 50/50 joint venture, including a television network and website. This would create another challenger to the popular Disney Channel and Nickelodeon networks.

NCsoft, commemorates five years of Lineage II service in the West with the launch of Gracia Final, a free expansion pack.

The company said that Gracia Final added a new continent and refined player-versus-player (PvP) combat. Other highlights of the Gracia Final expansion include more clan features, territory wars, new items, and new skill effects.

Mobile games publisher Gameloft achieved sales of EUR30.8 million for the first quarter of 2009, up by 22% from the previous year. On a comparable exchange rate basis, growth over the same period reached 18%.

Future Ads, the owner and operator of Gamevance.com, which claims to attracts over 12 million unique visitors a month announced the launch of PlaySushi.com (www.playsushi.com), a new casual games hub with titles from proprietary Gamevance games, and third-party developers. While Gamevance generally targets casual gaming's female demographic, PlaySushi is designed to attract the slightly younger - and growing - male-skewing casual games audience.

NetDragon Websoft announced that The Warlords, the English version of Tou Ming Zhuang Online, entered its open beta testing on April 24. The Warlords is a 2.5 D MMORPG game jointly created by NetDragon and China Film Group, sharing the same story as the film titled The Warlords.

NCsoft, today announced that on the cusp of its fourth anniversary, the Guild Wars franchise has exceeded six million units sold. To commemorate these milestones, ArenaNet has just released a major content update, including new quest content and extra storage options.

DICE, an Electronic Arts Inc. studio (NASDAQ:ERTS), today announced that Battlefield 1943 will be available in June for $15 USD in the Xbox LIVE Marketplace (1200 MS Points) or the PlayStation Store. The arcade title will also be available for PC in September, a few months after release on the Xbox and PlayStation stores. Battlefield 1943 is a new multiplayer game with popular maps inspired by Battlefield 1942.

NCsoft, a publisher and developer of massively multiplayer online games (MMOs), and Valve Corporation, said that that NCsoft’s catalog of MMO franchises is now available via Steam. The distribution platform Steam claims to have 20 million users worldwide.