It's about a week and a half since the launch of the App Store, selling applications for iPhone and iPod touch. Already, some gaming trends are noticeable.

The most obvious is the sheer popularity of games. Four out of the top five paid apps are games, with plenty more behind them. Games are doing pretty well in the free app category, too.

Looking closer at the dedicated games chart, it's interesting to see Super Monkey Ball and Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D nestling in the first and second spots for the whole of the App Store's first full week.

They're both console-derived 3D action games. Does this mean the iPhone will be a more hardcore gaming platform than expected, or simply that these (great) games were simply hot off the blocks? Time will tell.

Look lower down the Paid Games chart, and you'll see the more casual fare performing well – the rest of the top five consists of Texas Hold'em, Brain Challenge and a £1.79 sudoku game. Pool, virtual pets, air hockey and many many sudoku / solitaire games are much in evidence.

Pricing appears to be taking some downward pressure, too. Gameloft has already reduced the price of its Platinum Solitaire and Platinum Sudoku games to £2.99 from their launch-day prices of £4.99, for example.

Some big game names aren't performing so well, with Pac-Man lurking in 15th place, Bomberman Touch in 22nd, and THQ Wireless's de Blob down in 48th spot.

Meanwhile, a fascinating area to follow will be the performance of free indie games on the App Store. Check out the likes of Tap Tap Revenge and Aurora Feint: The Beginning, with the latter in particular offering gameplay worthy of a paid title.

The final thing to watch: demos. There's no built-in option for free demos in the App Store, unlike N-Gage, but resourceful publishers are finding their own way to offer this.
Moonlight Mahjong is one example, costing £2.99 for the full game, but also having a free Moonlight Mahjong Lite version, so players can sample the gameplay for free.

This may be an avenue worth pursuing for other developers and publishers: launch a Lite version of your game to gauge / create demand, and then upsell to a paid version later.