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.
NimbleBit's Ian Marsh on the NimbleDo's and NimbleDon'ts of development
It stands to reason that, when a mobile developer manages to string a few hits together, the world and his wife naturally want to know how they did it.
That was evident enough at GDC last month, when a large portion of the talks were dedicated to evaluating the success of specific games. NimbleBit's Ian Marsh also reflected on his studio's recent highs on the stand in San Francisco, with our follow up interview summarising his NimbleDo's and NimbleDon'ts for mobile development.
One tip is to put in-app purchases in last.
"I think the reason we've had the success we've had is because that's how we design our games, and because we're so generous to free players," concluded Marsh.
"That's what we've built our entire fan base [around], that kind of generosity. I don't think we're ever tempted to change that. We're more than happy with the success we've had with that strategy so far."
Former Call of Duty man Bowling on mobile's 'terrifying' but 'proven' free-to-play future
The console to mobile transition is a story that never gets old especially when the console franchise you were involved with was a certain Call of Duty.
"I'm an American developer who worked on big-budget retail games, so the free to play model, in my gut it's terrifying," Bowling, who left Infinity Ward a year ago, told us.
"It's a scary thing, but I mean obviously it's a proven model and it's been really eye-opening to jump into that scene and see player behaviours and see spending habits and what people like," Bowling said.
"I am now a subscriber to [the philosophy of] 'If it's a good game, people will pay for it.' It really forces you to make a good game, and I love it."
Finland nationalises its mobile games industry
Woah, woah. Hold your horses. That headline can't possibly be true, can it?
Well, no. As you no doubt guessed, this was our April Fools story, and it seems unlikely that many of you fell for it.
Nonetheless, it certainly proved popular and ended up spreading across Twitter at quite a pace.
"As of midnight 1st April, Helsinki time, all companies making and selling games, entertainment content and tools for distribution through the Apple App Store, Google Play, Amazon Appstore for Amazon, Windows Phone Store and Nokia Ovi store are now fully owned by the Finnish government," detailed PocketGamer.biz editor-at-large Jon Jordan.
"BlackBerry World and Samsung Apps weren't included on the prescribed list, however. 'We didn't even know they still existed,' an astonished insider commented."
Apple's crusade against third party app promotion continues as it pulls AppGratis
Right at the end of the week, Apple dropped a bombshell. Seemingly without warning, it pulled app discovery platform AppGratis from the App Store.
No word on why has been given, though speculation suggests the app may have been pulled for breaking App Store regulation 2.25, which loosely speaking bans apps acting like app stores in themselves.
There's no hard and fast rule, however, and Apple only seemingly takes action when apps such as AppGratis begin to become successful, stable platforms. The app recently launched in the US, and amassed $13.5 million in a funding round.
"There's an ever growing ecosystem of companies coming up with clever ways to connect users with apps," summarised editor-at-large Jon Jordan
"Sounds good, right? No. Apple doesn't like this one bit, because these companies are performing their smarts (and making their money) outside of the App Store; merely using it as dumb pipe for distribution.
"And that's why despite the ever increasing popping up of such schemes, Apple continues its whack-a-mole attitude and keeps bashing them down."
How a game that never was almost tore Halfbrick apart
Running away with it last week, however, were our two stories on the Halfbrick game that never was Tank Turn Tactics.
Following up our write up of CCO Luke Muscat's talk at GDC where he revealed demoing the game in physical form in the studio's office had almost tore the company apart we caught up with him off stage for a follow up interview.
"I definitely feel like I was probably a little naïve going into it and, you know, like I said in the talk, the best thing about it was how much I learned by looking at myself and understanding what happened and understanding my own motivations in making games," Muscat told us.
"It's definitely been a cool learning experience for me."
