Welcome to PocketGamer.biz's weekly rundown of the stories clocking up the hits, picking up the click-throughs and generally keeping the advertisers happy by serving up page views.
Or, if you'd prefer, the top five stories currently dominating our readers' attention.
Each week, we'll be counting down the biggest news from the previous seven days, giving just a glimpse of the industry's big issues, from five to one.
Finnish super developer Grand Cru announces The Supernauts and $2 million seed funding roundAnnouncing one of the largest seed funding rounds in Finnish gaming history, Grand Cru is certainly living up to its name.
Of the $2 million invested, French outfit Idinvest Partners was the lead company, with Playdom co-founder, Rick Thompson, ex-Googler Anil Hansjee and former Wooga head of studio Henric Suuronen also involved.
Grand Cru also took the wraps off its debut title; the Superheroic Sandbox MMO The Supernauts.
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Opinion: Why Zynga's $210 million acquisition of OMGPOP's is the right deal at the right priceThe big news of the week was Zynga splashing out $180 million in cash for Draw Something developer OMGPOP. A rumoured $30 million earn out brings the deal's potential total to $210 million.
And so started the debate about whether Zynga had paid too much. Conversely Flurry's Simon Khalaf reckoned OMGPOP should have held out for a billion dollars.
PocketGamer.biz, together with other shrewd industry insiders, argued the deal was good for both sides - especially given the uncertainty surrounding Draw Something's longterm future. After all, it's only been out for seven weeks.
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RIM shares rise on Samsung investment and BB10 licensing rumourOne of the strangest rumours of the week was the one that suggested Samsung was looking to invest in RIM, as well as potentially licensing its new BlackBerry 10 operating system.
There wasn't any strong proof of a deal on the cards, however, and by the week's end RIM shares had fallen back down to less than CAD$14.
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Adobe highlights the 60fps power of Flash gaming thanks to AIR 3.2 SDKThanks to its previous battles with Apple, Adobe has often made headlines in mobile gaming for the wrong reasons.
Now, however, the company's strategy is clear. It's focused on dealing with mobile, tablets and desktop in a coherent manner; in terms of its AIR and Flex tools, and widespread support for HTML5 and Flash. The result is it hopes to provide a platform for native and web applications across all hardware.
Highlighting this approach, it's giving away the source code of shoot-'em up Waste Invaders game as part of a push for the AIR 3.2 SDK release.
Click here to read more
Nokia's Lumia 710 tops iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus in US customer satisfaction survey
Will Nokia crack the US market with its new Windows Phone devices? That's the crucial question, both for the future of the Finnish giant and Microsoft's mobile platform.
Sales haven't been great to-date, but the only phone available is the Lumia 710, with the signature Lumia 900 seen as being the key launch.
Still, a survey from T-Mobile suggests that those Americans who do have the Lumia 710 really like it. Indeed, they like it more that iPhone 4S and Galaxy Nexus owners like their phones.
Click here to read more
Until next week...
Hot Five
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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