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.
Five things we learned from Unite 2012
Surprisingly, given its status as the annual get together for developers using the Unity engine, Unite 2012 was about much more than just plain technology.
That's the takeaway from PocketGamer.biz editor Keith Andrew in his 'Five things we learned from Unite 2012' article.
These range from Peter Molyneux's argument that the full potential of mobile gaming remains to be shaped, to the importance of Kickstarter and the impact of Windows 8.
Read the full story here
How Twitter and Facebook is powering Fluid Football to 40,000+ downloads a dayIn a week where the value of user acquisition was much debated on PocketGamer.biz, another example of a 'zero marketing' success was provided by the Chromativity-developed and AppyNation-published Fluid Football. (AppyNation being a UK-based indie cooperative.)
The free-to-play game was downloaded over 235,000 times in its launch week, with comms manager Andrew Smith pointing to its timing alongside the start of the UK soccer season, being magnified by social promotion on Twitter and Facebook.
Read the full story here
GREE, Kabam, Crowdstar and Booyah add to user acquisition frenzy offering direct deals with ChartboostAnother user acquisition story riding high in our charts last week concerned the direct deal Kiosks available on Chartboost.
Joining previous partners Pocket Gems and TinyCo, Kabam, GREE, Crowdstar and Booyah are now offering up to $3.50 per download provided through the system such is the demand for the larger publishers to expand their userbase.
Read the full story here
Apple unveils redesigned App Store in iOS 6 beta
Due to be formally released any week now, the beta release of iOS 6 is throwing up the usual array of rumours about how the Apple ecosystem will be operating for the next 12 months - not to mention all the speculation about devices.
One thing everyone agrees on, however, is that the App Store (and iTunes) is in need of a radical makeover.
It's something that looks like it will be happening, not least in terms of how search results will be displayed.
Read the full story here
Opinion: User acquisition is a waste of money, and will eventually kill the mobile games industryCrystalising the debate about longterm value of user acquisition was editor-at-large Jon Jordan's provocative opinion piece.
Arguing that the rush to buy users mirrored previous destructive app store business activity such as the 'dash to 99c', he said that while user acquisition could make sense for platform companies such as GREE and DeNA, many companies were getting sucked into a 'mee too' situation that made little financial sense.
And more significantly, the trickledown effect was that developers were becoming focused less on the quality of their games than releasing enough games to provide sufficient inventory to run the adverts that drive the entire business.
Read the full story here
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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