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.
Opinion: EA needs to convince fans that Real Racing 3's F2P damage mechanic is more than a 'cut and shut' jobA big breaking story last week - and ongoing - was publisher EA and developer Firemonkeys' announcement that the much anticipated Real Racing 3 was a free-to-play game.
Perhaps not surprising given EA's recent conversion to the business model, nevertheless the move has created a strong backlash from franchise fans. After all, the first two games were premium titles, released at $5.
In particular, ire has been generated by the introduction of damage as a key monetisation issue; something I explore in my opinion piece.
Read the full story here.
Is Amazon giving Google a run for its money on Android?Amazon's decision to launch its own Android-based tablet ecosystem was successful during the 2011/12 holiday season, when Kindle Fire was released in North America. We haven't heard many developers talking up the online retailer as a key app channel since it went global with the release of Kindle Fire HD in mid-2012, however.
That was the discussion point of our Maven panel. They suggested it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation."
"Very few of the developers we speak to have a strategy to launch on Amazon," pointed out PR man John Ozimek.
"I don't see that changing unless downloads and revenues improve, which is a bit of a Catch-22 as it depends on more great apps hitting the store to drive consumer interest."
Read the full story here.
Casual Connect Europe: Achievement unlocked Kabam lifts the lid on the 'midcore' gamerAs part of his comprehensive coverage from Casual Connect Europe 2013 in Hamburg - see it all here - Keith's article about Kabam found a willing audience.
The US publisher was one of the big success stories on iOS and Android during 2012 as it converted web games such as Kingdoms of Camelot and launched mobile-only titles like Arcane Empires up the top grossing charts.
And that's what president of its games studios Andrew Sheppard discussed in his talk about unlocking the midcore gaming market.
Read the full story here.
Vita's not dead yet: Jetpack Joyride does 475,000 downloads
In terms of its current install base, PS Vita has not been a success. More like a disaster. But at least the three-million-odd owners of Sony's portable device are using their Vitas.
That's the conclusion to take from Halfbrick's announcement that over 475,000 copies of its free-to-play game Jetpack Joyride have been downloaded on PlayStation Network.
This compares to 790,000 downloads on the much more numerous PlayStation 3.
Read the full story here.
Supercell overcomes EA to gain #1 top grossing game and company status on iOS
Seven months ago, Finnish developer Supercell was a failed Facebook game company. Now it's the top grossing iOS games publisher in the world. At least, that's what Dutch app store analytics company Distimo reckons.
It's just released its chart for the top grossing iOS and Google Play games and companies for January 2013.
Calculated across 44 countries, this month' chart shows Supercell finally overcoming EA, which previously held the #1 spot for iOS.
In terms of Google Play, Korean and Japanese companies and games are in the ascendancy. Japanese publisher Gungho Online is #1, overtaking DeNA which held the position in December.
Read the full story here.
