World of Warcraft house Blizzard and The Sims studio EA Maxis dominated the PC charts another month, taking up half of the top 20 slots on NPD Group's PC retail sales charts for May.

November 2008's World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King from Blizzard topped the charts in May, followed by April 2008's The Sims 2 Double Deluxe from EA Maxis, and another Blizzard title, World Of Warcraft Battle Chest. The three games held the top three spots from the previous month.

NPD's U.S. PC retail charts do not track digital sales, such as paid downloads and subscriptions, which are rapidly expanding business models.

Overall, the chart is a reshuffling of the platform's most popular players. But in a nod to classic PC gaming, Fallout games also made the list in the form of the newly-released Fallout Trilogy, which includes Fallout 1, 2, and Tactics.

The full top 20 list for May is below, courtesy of NPD Group:

Free-to-play online game company Outspark is partnering with Meebo to integrate the latter's communications client across all of its sites, such as Fiesta and Blackshot.

With Meebo Community IM, Outspark players can chat with their friends across the network, create and share profiles, setup buddy lists to track who's online, send private messages, create group lists, and share media content.

The client also enables players to access their contact lists through social networks like Twitter and Facebook, as well as other IM services such as Gtalk and AIM. Outspark notes that their new chat system will allow advertisers to closely target their ads, too.

"This is an exciting initiative to bring to our community. The Meebo partnership supports the social and gaming needs of our users and the ways they seek to share information," says Outspark's Business Development VP Wilson Kriegel. "It also supports our goal of delivering deeper and more relevant engagement and experiences between our users and games."

Think Services’ Game Developer magazine and Game Developer Research division -- sister divisions to Gamasutra -- have announced a major study ranking the top 50 game development studios worldwide.

Following up on last year's inaugural study, Game Developer's Top 50 Developers 2009 combines empirical market data with a detailed survey taken by game development professionals via industry-leading website Gamasutra to create a holistic view of the top game developers using sales and reputation data.

In the countdown, also listed and detailed in the June/July 2009 issue of Game Developer magazine, Nintendo's internal Kyoto studio came out on top -- thanks in no small part to incredible sales of a healthy lineup of DS and Wii software like Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii as well as ongoing catalogue titles like Wii Play and Brain Age.

Nintendo's incredibly strong sales and high industry reputation kept the studio on top for the second year, even as its total volume of software output shrank.

Massively multiplayer online strategy game developer eRepublik Labs raised $2.8 million in funding for its first game, the free-to-play eRepublik - The New World, and other future titles.

The Dublin, Ireland-based developer said Wednesday it raised the money in a series A funding round led by Paris, France's AGF Private Equity. Last year, the game maker raised $762,000 in funding, and in 2007 raised $277,000.

eRepublik Labs said the funds would go towards further development of eRepublik, in which players engage in "local and national politics, set economic policy, start businesses and wage wars with other countries."

Tokyo developer GameArts and publisher GungHo Online Entertainment announced they're developing Grandia Online with BigWorld's Technology Suite.

The recently-announced Grandia Online continues the long-standing franchise that began in 1997 with the original Grandia RPG on Sega Saturn. It enters open beta this July, with a full commercial release promised for the summer.

BigWorld promises a development solution specifically for scaleable next-gen MMOs and virtual worlds. Its Technology Suite incorporates a toolset that includes the BigWorld Server Software, Content Creation Pipeline, 3D Client Engine Package, and Live Management Tools & Instrumentation.

GameArts also used BigWorld Technology Suite to build recent upgrades to its Hokuto No Ken Online Heroes. GungHo Online producer Yoshitada Iwata says the tools are a "a robust, cost effective way for us to bring GameArts’ online visions to life."

"We are very pleased that GameArts’ experience with the BigWorld Technology Suite during the development of Hokuto-no-Ken led them to acquire a subsequent license for the development of Grandia Online," adds BigWorld's James Hursthouse, director of business development for Japan and Korea.

Just following Electronic Arts' announcement that its chief operating officer, John Pleasants, would be leaving the company to be replaced by former Microsoft exec John Schappert, venture-backed social game developer Playdom reveals Pleasants will become its new CEO.

Playdom co-founder and current CEO Dan Yue, who'll continue contributing to product strategy and game development as chief product officer, says Pleasants was an ideal choice, citing both his experience in operations and his "vision for the future of social gaming."

As part of his overall operations role at EA, Pleasants has experience overseeing businesses like the company's casual Pogo portal, its social networking initiatives and its mobile games biz.

"Online gaming is the fastest-growing sector of the gaming industry, and social gaming, in particular, is transforming the way people play and experience games,' said Pleasants.

Playdom, which claims more than 20 million monthly active users playings its online games on a number of social networks, runs games such as as Mobsters on MySpace and Facebook.

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Bungie, Relic Entertainment and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

As Electronic Arts continues to expand into digital market, it's hiring for a "new social gaming platform" at its relatively unknown EA Waterloo office in Canada, according to new job postings.

Job listings posted on multiple location-specific websites say the publisher is seeking a "User Experience Designer" for an EA Waterloo location, and the candidate will "lead the design and prototyping of applications for online games, community features and e-commerce transactions" for the new platform.

When approached for comment, EA confirmed only that it has a "small office in Ontario that is focused on supporting our online initiatives."

Among the job requirements is a web application development background and a "strong passion for games and a familiarity with social networking platforms."

The job posting also notes that online play is a "key strategic direction" for the company's games, a tenet that EA CEO John Riccitiello frequently raises when discussing the company's direction. The job listings also mention applications that can be distributed across multiple platforms including the iPhone.

According to online guides, Ontario's Technology Corridor offers a variety of incentives to encourage developers to put down roots in the area, like 20 percent tax credits and various funding programs for digital media projects.

The region of Ontario is home to a number of higher learning institutions, including Toronto's Ontario College of Art & Design and the University of Waterloo, both of which have received significant investments to create programs for digital media students.