I can't say the eighth Mobile Games Forum was the best ever incarnation of the conference because I've only been to three of them.

However, I'd be surprised if the line up of speakers has been more distinguished, or the subjects covered as wide or intertwined.

So after two days of solid live-ish blogging, meeting with old friends, introductions to new, and not a lot of sleep, here are seven subjects I'm going to think to about some more as we entered the frantic spring event period that's bookmarked by Mobile World Congress (14-17 February) and the Games Developers Conference (28 February to 4 March).

1. Clash of civilisations

Let's start with something big. The mobile games industry is the first part of the games industry to be fully exposed to the pressures of digital distribution.

Smartphones mean apps and app stores. It means developers don't need publishers. It releases creativity, collapsing the friction of purchase into a melting pot with new compulsion loops, and easy access to friends, while throwing up the barriers of price paucity, and fragmented devices and social graph.

Yet for all these problems (mainly technical and monetary), the innovation and business flexibility generated is now the prevailing model for the entire games industry. Hence, despite the traditional console/retail market being currently worth ten times the value of the mobile industry, which will win?

One argument is that the resources, brands and production quality of the console world will overcome the nascent attempts of mobile and portable companies to build up their content into the console world.

The contrasting argument is despite two years of opportunity, console companies have demonstrated little inclination, let alone the technical prowess or financial acumen to take full advantage of the pure digital distribution play of the iOS sector.

2. Hunt or create the whales?

In Las Vegas, a whale is a high roller who's happy to drop (and lose) millions in a single weekend's gambling. Modified for the freemium games sector, a whale is the description of a player who's prepared to spend large amounts of money on virtual items; anything up to $100 per game.

Of course, as with casinos, whales are great for business, with consultants advising developers to ensure their games can provide the necessary options in terms of exclusive customisation items that will satisfy their desires.

Yet as more freemium games are released, the stark question is, how do you attract more whales to your game, and is there a limited supply of them?

Pessimists think the explosion in freemium games will see developers, like casino owners, competing to gain the patronage of the small number of available whales, while optimists think whales can be created; every player converted to by 99c download, one step further down the slope that will convert them to subsequent $5, $10, $20 or $50 purchases.

3. Rumours of Java's death have been greatly exaggerated

It's been clear for anyone talking to publishers such as Gameloft and EA, not to mention the likes of Glu, Connect2Media, Digital Chocolate and HandyGames, the much maligned business of selling simple Java games via carrier decks remains the bedrock of the mobile business, at least when it comes to revenues.

Certainly not sexy, but when 99c iOS games such as Doodle Jump and Flight Control are being sold at three to five times the price in a simpler form, you have to sit up and take notice.

Of course, in North America and western Europe, smartphones are taking over in terms of install base and annual handset sales, but the fact is Java content will remain an important part of the mobile business for years to come.

It's another opportunity for the shrewd developer.

4. If you're looking for an apples-to-apples comparison, don't compare Apple and Android

The temptation is certainly there but as your linguistics teacher should have told you, a pineapple isn't an apple even though it contains some of the same letters.

Hence correct comparisons to Apple's iOS include Samsung's bada, Microsoft's Window Phone 7, and (maybe) Intel/Nokia's MeeGo. Android, however, is an open platform and one fundamentally designed for the benefit of handset and tablet manufacturers, not content developers.

So if you want to develop for Android, grow a pair and deal with the various fragmentation issues. If not, remain in a state of high-pitched grace and sing arias to Steve Jobs for the rest of your life, but please stop bitching.

5. Broken social scene

Conferences provide occasional gems of honesty. One at Mobile Games Forum saw social networks OpenFeint and Scoreloop confessing (between the lines) that they were yet to build out a coherent way of linking you to your friends other than using web frameworks such as Facebook and Twitter. Absent ngmoco might argue its Plus+ network is better, but if so, it's a marginal improvement at best.

This is a problem for the whole mobile gaming space, which fragments the network of real-life and virtual friends thanks to its multiple devices; something not even Facebook's focus on mobile APIs and single sign-ons can't stickyplaster over.

Unless Facebook becomes the only social platform in the world and deeply integrated into every handset, it's a problem that we're just have to deal with.

It's a massive issue for the mobile freemium sector however, which is unlikely to gain its predicted ARPU numbers without solving this. 

Still, it also provides an interesting opportunity for someone - Sony, Microsoft or perhaps one of the location-based mobiles services - to solve in an innovative manner that creates a new category of friendliness somewhere inbetween real-life and random avatar playmates.

Until that time though, me and player1245663 will remain bff.

6. Paid-for installs are everyone's dirty little secret

Like a porn stash, a ziplock of Bolivian march powder for the weekend or a NRA membership card, there are some vices in which most adults partake, but won't confess in polite society.

Paid-for installs seem to fall into a similar category; the implication being either developers aren't confident in their new release's quality working within the meritocracy of the app store, or they're genuinely shamed by the fact they are buying users, if only to get a short term chart boost.

Fact is, it's not a silver bullet but every little addition to the armory helps and Doodle Jump developer Lima Sky uses them. 

7. What's your Comparative Competitive Advantage?

CCA is the most important acronym you'll hear this year. And I should know. I've just invented it. Wonder what it means?

You can read all our coverage from the excellent Mobile Games Forum 2011 here.