Well, here’s a fun turn of events. After years of seeing your favorite board games work their way onto your gaming consoles, USAopoly and Blizzard Entertainment are teaming to bring your video games onto your dining room table. Monopoly: World of Warcraft and Risk: StarCraft will “… combine tried-and-true foundations with new designs and gameplay elements inspired by Blizzard’s popular gaming universes.”

Blizzard Entertainment announced today they’re planning to host the 2012 Battle.net World Championship in Asia towards the end of 2012. Participants battle each other in StarCraft 1v1 and World of Warcraft 3v3 arena matches until the winning teams emerge. In addition, BlizzCon won’t take place this year because they have a busy schedule of upcoming games. Instead, they’ll hold it sometime in 2013.

With the release of the latest content patch, Blizzard has announced that World of Warcraft is now free-to-play through level 20. New players can download the WoW Starter Edition free from worldofwarcraft.com. Players will have access to content from The Burning Crusade, including the draenei and blood elf characters. If they wish to continue playing beyond level 20, both the original WoW and The Burning Crusade are available together for $19.99.

Blizzard Entertainment has really shown the good-hearted nature of their company and their customers through an $800,000 donation they made to the Make-A-Wish Foundation on behalf of the World of Warcraft community. The donation was largely made possible due to the Moonkin Hatchling pet that customers had purchased through the popular MMORPG, and was accompanied with a special World Wish Day celebration on April 29th where over ten Make-A-Wish children and their families got to visit the Blizzard campus and enjoy a day of fun and games.

World of Warcraft, the lovable children’s game where you collect honeybees to make ice cream before the big church picnic, has released its latest expansion: Cataclysm. The plot surrounds Sailor Sammy’s quest to discover who’s stolen the key to Old Man Eli’s candy store! OR it might be about how an ancient dragon devastates Azeroth, a mythical land populated by fantasy races all locked in an endless war.

Blizzard Entertainment has announced a series of global launch events for the latest expansion to World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. The expansion—which will “devastate” familiar areas—adds new quests and two new playable races: the werewolf-like Worgen and the Goblins (previously an NPC race). The expansion will go on sale at midnight on December 7th in the U.S. in a standard edition and expanded edition with additional bonus items.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. has announced that World of Warcraft: Cataclysm will be released on December 7, 2010. This third expansion for the subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game will be available on DVD-ROM for Macintosh and Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 at a suggested retail price of $39.99 and will also be offered as a digital download from the Blizzard Store. A special Collector’s Edition packed with bonus items will be available exclusively in retail stores for a suggested retail price of $79.99.

Like World of Warfcraft? Like the iPad? Well, perhaps the two will soon meet. As a photo on the internet shows, David Perry, a game developer, was able to find WOW on a Gaikai server streaming over Wifi to the iPad. And it looks cool. While we know this means it obviously isn’t using Flash, it will certainly be interesting to see not only what it is using but whether there will be a way for WOW users to play it on their iPad.

So now you’re hosed. It’s Christmas Eve and you need a truly last-minute present or stocking stuffer. Now, the simple thing to do would be an iTunes gift certificate, which you can print out or email. Bang presto, problem solved. But suppose you know someone who doesn’t own an iPod (they exist, you know). Or maybe you just want something different. here are some other gifts you can pull together at the 11th hour.

The Macintosh is not a gaming machine. I understand that. I’ve been fighting the good fight for over a decade now, but it’s a losing battle. Mac users will never get as many games as PC owners, we’ll never see the innovation, and simultaneous releases continue to elude us even today.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t great games to be played. With the right software and hardware, it’s pretty easy to fool your Macintosh into thinking it’s an Xbox 360, if even for a little while. So, if you know a Mac gamer in need of some gifts this Christmas season, or if you’re getting a new Mac and want to see what it can do, here are a couple of suggestions to get you started (provided your system can handle them).