The 69th Mobile Monday event - and first of 2011 - kicked off at the CBI Conference Centre in London this week, the discussion focused on the subject of mobile gaming as a whole.

The panel, chaired by Oscar Clarke (PapayaMobile's evangelist) consisted of a number of industry veterans from both the mobile industry and console business.

These were; Struan Robertson (product director, NaturalMotion), Gareth Edmondson (CEO, Thumbstar Games), Georgina Mackenzie (CEO, ToyTek), and Ian Baverstock (founding partner, Tenshi Ventures).

This variety of panellists also extended to the audience, which not only included some familiar faces from the mobile gaming industry, but also representatives from TIGA, major networks like Orange, and a large assortment of smaller businesses and technology enthusiasts.

Android rising?

One of the biggest surprises of the night was just how positive the panel were about Android as a gaming platform, with Edmonson going as far to say that "the opportunities on Android are greater than on iOS".

This positivity was in stark contrast to other seminars and debates, such as Pocket Gamer's own panel discussion (also featuring Robertson and Clarke) held during Droidcon London 2011. Or, indeed, Droidcon itself.

The oft repeated fact of the large install base and rapid growth were the main contributing factors to this positivity behind Google’s platform, although Baverstock did admit that "clearly people seem to be spending more money on iOS".

Not having a product on Android was one of Mackenzie's regrets, saying that "At the time [it released its iOS games]. it was just too high risk. There was a lot of piracy, no-one had worked out a model on how to monetise a game, so we stayed out of it".

"But over time people have proven it's better to be on two shops than one," she added.

The fragmentation grenade

The usually one-sided view on Android fragmentation was another talking point that received unusually positive comments from the panel.

Rather than taking the traditional view that fragmentation of devices was a bad thing for developers, Baverstock told the crowd that he expected to see "people able to take advantage of this fragmented market of Android".

"Superficially that’s a real pain in the arse, but actually ... if I concentrate my marketing in this one space or one device you can really start innovate in a way you can't do in Apple world," he argued.

Edmondson didn't even buy the line that fragmentation was significantly worse on Android than on iOS, quoting a report that said "the average versions an Android developer would make is six, whereas an iOS developer would make four".

"It is getting worse because of more handsets and operating systems, but it’s not actually as bad as everyone thinks," he said.

This was shot down by Robertson, in typically pithy fashion. "I think iOS tends towards one, while Android tends towards more", he retorted.

No space for newcomers?

While the initial attitude at the event was one of opportunity, the majority of the speakers felt that the mobile environment had moved more towards large scale productions than bedroom/small development teams.

"I don't think it's a great time [to be a games developer]," stated Mackenzie, highlighting her point by saying that out of 145 games developers set up in the UK between 2008 and 2010, "by the end of that period, 131 of them had shut down".

"A lot of people have done 'the gold rush'. They think they can do their one hit wonder, make their millions, but the cost of development for mobile games is going really high for indie developers. It’s getting tough again," she explained.

Robertson had a warning for those wanting to jump directly into making a freemium game, focusing on the different methodology that goes with the new business model.

"You need an analytics team," he said.

"That's not knowledge that comes from the console world where a lot of people are going to come from when they form a mobile studio."

Yet despite the negativity for newcomers, the prospects of the mobile gaming industry as a whole was still rosey, with Edmondson raising the point that "There are 4.5 billion handsets in the market, only 16 percent of them are smartphones. That says opportunity, doesn’t it?"