It would be easy to think that Mobile World Congress isn't really a big deal for mobile games companies. Only a few have stands, after all – Gameloft in its usual position in a strange corner of Hall 2, and a smattering of smaller developers in the content-focused Hall 7.

They might not be exhibiting, but the games folk are still there in numbers. Glu flew its SVP of global publishing AND its CFO over, Apple was meeting various developers and publishers during the show, US firms like Mpowerplayer were there, and pretty much every publisher was in town to meet distributors and cut deals.

Meanwhile, games made their presence felt on other companies' stands, with cutting-edge 3D titles showcasing chipsets, and multiplayer titles used to demo LTE and 4G technology. And of course, for companies like Nokia and Microsoft launching app stores, games were one of the key strands.

It's the latter that was fuelling much of the conversations between games people at MWC. Everyone is buzzing at the trend towards more open application stores with more favourable revenue shares for games developers than the carrier portals.

Many developers expressed wariness too, particularly on the rev-share side of things. A 70 or 80 per cent share sounds great, but whether it's 70 or 80 per cent of the price the user pays for the game is another question – developers want to know what (if anything) gets deducted before their share is calculated.

There is also anticipation about how the operators are reacting to the app store – and indeed the App Store. The big guns of the mobile games industry aren't threatening the carriers, but they are pointing out fairly forcefully that iPhone is seeming to offer a better return on their investment right now. How this affects operators' revenue share deals and demands over handset support remains to be seen.

Naturally, iPhone was the topic on every publisher and developer's lips. Mostly in a positive way: you can't overstate the enthusiasm mobile games companies have for the way Apple has shaken up the market since the launch of the App Store.

Mobile games are cool again – we lost count of the times people hailed the 'Funnest iPod ever' TV ads for the iPod touch, which mainly features games. Meanwhile, among developers there's an eagerness to start really getting to grips with what can be done with a touchscreen and accelerometer – on iPhone and other handsets.

Alongside this, there's a real hunger to see what Apple is going to do next – how it's going to develop the App Store and iPhone gaming offering.

Hopes for better discovery and recommendation features, micropayments and new initiatives on game pricing are part of the story, while several developers suggested to PocketGamer.biz that Apple is seriously considering launching an Xbox Live-style iPhone games community.

By contrast, there was less of a buzz around Android than expected – possibly because there wasn't the anticipated glut of new Android handset announcements. While the introduction of paid apps to Android Market is warmly welcomed, Google's platform is still spoken of in terms of its potential... once those handsets start to roll out.

Nokia's launch of Ovi Store, Research In Motion's ongoing drive to promote BlackBerry handsets to consumers, the slowly-increasing number of hardware-accelerated phones... Games may have been bubbling under at MWC in terms of overt hype, but the key trends of the show will all directly and positively impact this industry.

This, together with the breadth of innovation shown on partner stands and in the IMG Awards finalists, is reason enough to be cheerful. We've come away fired up about the possibilities for mobile games in the coming months.