Electronic Arts and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) will be hosting a panel entitled "Homophobia in Virtual Communities" to discuss methods on how to combat discrimination and hatred language in online gaming communities.

Here's another million-mark breaker. Spore of Electronic Arts has broken through the big 100M creatures creation marker, with over 30 million Spore creatures uploaded to Sporepedia. And according to the press release, "that's more than 19 times the number of known species on Earth." There's also something for you if you're the creator of the lucky 100 millionth creation.

If you're bored with all the unicellular screenshots and videos of Maxis' upcoming life simulator Spore(PC, Nintendo Wii, DS, Mac, and Mobile), then feast your eyes on this latest trailer for the game. Producer Kip Katsarelis and Software Engineer Soren Johnsen explain how the civilization stage of the game works and show just how cool it can be waging war against your fellow life forms. Video and details after the jump.

The folks at Maxis and Electronic Arts have announced a new patch for the Spore Creature Creator, bringing it up to version 1.01. Find the full patch notes for this update after the jump!

In light of the EA Maxis' Spore going gold, concern once again has hit the PC gaming segment over the definite inclusion of digital rights management (DRM) software with each copy. Many have argued over the integration of SecuROM on executables of The Sims 2 and its expansions, and now that Spore producer Lucy Bradshaw has confirmed Spore will be succeeded by at least one expansion, there's a whole lot of bickering to come for PC gamers. More details at the full story.

After all the delays and the setbacks, publisher Electronic Arts has finally raised the green flag on its upcoming life simulation game, Spore (PC, Nintendo Wii, DS, Mac, and Mobile), and is ready to ship the much awaited title by next month. The company earlier announced that Spore has finally gone gold is now currently in the manufacturing process. Check out further statements issued by EA after the jump.

For those of you waiting for the release of Maxis' Spore (PC, Nintendo Wii, DS, Mac, and Mobile), it seems like the long wait is finally drawing to a close. During a studio visit from producer Thomas Vu, he confirmed to CNET that the game will be going gold by next week. Everything seems good to go for the game's September release on the PC and the Mac. More details on this development in our full article.

Her Interactive might as well give itself a pat on the back for none of the mainstream developers would have expected this to happen during their next-generation watch. One of the longest running PC game franchises in history has once again claimed top spot in its launch date, trumping the likes of EA's Spore Creature Creator and Blizzard's Diablo Battle Chest SKU. Get the top ten at the full story.

It's like even before Will Wright's Spore releases, Electronic Arts keeps shoveling more and more moolah into the vault. Someone definitely did something right by getting IKEA involved in the latest expansion to The Sims 2, because the brand-approved luxuries tucked away inside every twenty buck box managed to overtake every PC retail game offered in the US. The full top ten list follows at the full story.

Who said E3 was going to be anything but great for the PC? The 100 million-selling franchise of Electronic Arts and internal studio Maxis is brewing up for another return to the PC, and according to official news streams it should land on Windows by 2009. Now that's not to say Maxis hasn't given The Sims 3 a lot of tender loving care - have a look for yourself. The Sims 3 took your whole Sims 2 world and extended it to whole towns. Feature starts in the full story in 3, 2, 1...