Keeping well away from difficult topics such as Motorola or Google+, Google's talk at the Smartphone and Tablet Games Summit at GDC Europe focused on mobile advertising.

"We are now monetising through over 100,000 applications and handling over 85 billion ad requests a month," revealed Ross Brockman, a strategic partner manager at the Google-owned AdMob, who has a focus on mobile games.

"We're about helping you guys making as much money as possible," he said, pointing out that as well as AdMob - "a premium tier solution" - developers can use mediation layers such as Adwhirl if they desire. (It's also owned by Google.)

The bigger network

Of course, Brockman was happier talking up the opportunities available with AdMob.

Using the example of Backflip Studios, he pointed to AdMob's house ad program as something that works particularly well for game developers, partly because of the stickiness of their content, and partly because game developers tend to release a lot of content.

Last time we heard, Backflip had done 100 million downloads and generates 1 billion monthly ad impressions.

Point and click

The system works as developers switch over some or all of their in-game ad inventory to their own house ads.

"You get an instant opportunity to tell everyone who's already playing your games that you have a new game out," Brockman explained.

"If you have ten games out, this makes launching the eleventh easier, and the twelfth even easier."

This network effect also plays well with respect to the freemium business, as developers can use their ads to drive free downloads, upsell paid content, and/or sell virtual items and currency.

"And if your network is big enough, you can do direct deals with advertisers yourselves," Brockman said.

"The cross promotion available with house ads is a powerful tool to grow your portfolio and build a sustainable business."