Hot Five: StartApp's paying out, everyone's talking Ouya, and Madfinger's piracy problem
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.
Top Android devs earning $25,000 a month with StartApp, claims Itay Rokni
Android developers that integrate the StartApp SDK into their app earn revenue for every app download.
Following news the tool has passed 150 million downloads, we asked the company's VP marketing Itay Rokni exactly how much developers were actually earning through StartApp.
"We have some top developers earning over $25,000 a month and growing, and we have many independent developers that earn over $5,000 a month which enables them to quit their day time job and making Android as their main business," he told us.
You can check out Rokni's account in full here.
Nevermind PS4 or Xbox, Ouya is the real next-gen console, argues Astrogun
At the time of writing, Ouya has now raised more than $5.7 million through its Kickstarter page, and has attracted more than 45,000 backers.
It's drawing in developers, too, and Astrogun CEO Xander Davis who's currently working on a launch title for the system told us exactly why he's so excited about the $99 console.
"If the coming generation on the roadmap was supposed to be the 'eighth gen', I think the Ouya is 'ninth gen'. It breaks the rules and skips to the inevitable conclusion of all of these tools and technology proliferating, democratising, and maturing in tandem with the cloud," detailed Davis.
"That is what Ouya is selling: the living room and the control to anyone. It opens up the types of games you can make, rescues us away from snacking gameplay design and back to the core."
Opinion: Why Ouya will struggle for mainstream acceptance
Not everyone is so convinced of the Ouya's messianic potential, however.
Pocket Gamer's mighty editor in chief Kristan Reed, for one, argues that the console is more likely to excite hobbyists rather than the mainstream.
"The ability to tinker around with it, and hack it into oblivion make it enormously attractive as an all-round media powerhouse."
But the Ouya faces stiff competition in the form of smart TVs, cut-price current-gen consoles and existing mobile hardware. These devices are already familiar to the mass-market, and it's hard to discern exactly what the Ouya offers these consumers that they can't find elsewhere.
"Why would they bother buying an extra box when they already have a perfectly capable smartphone/tablet/console system anyway?"
The PocketGamer.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens on Ouya's chances on coming out on top
Our readers have an insatiable attitude for the Ouya right now, so we assembled the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Gaming Mavens to hear their two cents on the matter.
"Ouya is pretty comical," opened Bolt Creative co-founder Dave Castelnuovo. "There is really 0 percent chance that any medium or large publisher will support this platform."
Mobile Pie's Will Luton was a little more optimistic, though, explaining "I think the Ouya will do okay. I think there's a business case for it."
However, "it will only ever attract self-identifying 'gamers' - those within the existing demographics." As such, "I fear Ouya will just rehash what we've had for the last 20 years," Luton concluded.
Upon its release, Dead Trigger for Android was a 99c download. Just three weeks later, Madfinger Games made the title free-to-play.
Responding to outraged early adopters, Madfinger posted a statement explaining that rampant Android piracy had forced the studio to reconsider its business model.
We caught up with sales and marketing manager Anna Porizkova to find out exactly how bad things were.
"Dead Trigger's piracy rate is 80 percent. That means we only get paid only for 20 percent of all copies of Dead Triggerand all of the rest are pirate copies," said Porizkova.
"Of course there are differences among countries. In some countries piracy rate reaches 99.998 percent."