PocketGamer.biz Week That Was: Apple suffers profit slump, developers turn to Bitcoins, and how Manchester and Liverpool studios are fighting back

Halloween has come and gone, leaving the mobile gaming community with a mixed bag of tricks and treats.

While some companies reported a rich, chocolaty haul of profits in the last quarter, others were left with handfuls of loose change and boxes of unwanted raisins.

Still, there's plenty of sweet and tasty news to be found under the flood of red ink that ran through the headlines this week - and that's why we're ready to abandon the candy analogy and take a good look back at the week that was.

Tools and platforms

• The beta of Microsoft's Windows Phone App Studio led to 65,000 apps created by 160,000 users since its launch two months ago.
• After posting a modest profit, Nintendo says it's not ruling out mobile... as a marketing platform.
• Meanwhile, BlackBerry might not be out of the picture yet, as its BlackBerry Messenger picked up 20 million new users following an iOS and Android release.
• Gartner Research suggests mobile gaming revenue will double to $22 billion by 2015 as devices continue to grow and evolve.
• And speaking of evolving smart devices, Motorola unveiled the future-proof Project Ara modular smartphone.
  

Industry voices

• Fishlabs CEO Michael Schade says that it's hard to find an investment in mobile if you can't guarantee $1 million a day.
• Our Mobile Mavens talk tablets after last week's iPad/Nokia onslaught and decide that developers want stability, not innovation.
• Dr. Robert Xiao, CEO of Perfect World, says the China-based publisher still considers the US to be 'an important market'.
• Our own Jon Jordan opines that EA should have bought NaturalMotion or Machine Zone instead of PopCap.
• ...before giving us a history lesson on Gaugin to help us predict the future of mobile gaming.
• And Pocket Gamer Events Editor Martine Paris gives a recap of 7 things you could have learned from The Pocket Gamer Global Game Stars Track
• Should developers monetise their games by making them mine for Bitcoins in the background?

Funding, start ups and personnel

• Rumble Entertainment confirmed a Series B round of $17.5 million with Korean F2P MMOG expert Nexon as the lead investor.
• Japan-based messaging service LINE is reportedly heading to an $8 billion IPO in 2014.
• Ciara Smyth steps up as King's new CPO.
• And layoffs hit The Playforge as the studio 'winds down' on game development.
• Meanwhile, Chinese game stocks got hit hard as Changyou shares dropped 20 percent and China Mobile Games & Entertainment diped by 8 percent.

Quarterly figures round up

• While Apple's quarterly revenue was up $1.5 billion from the same period in 2012, it suffered its first annual fall in profits in over a decade.
• GungHo Online Entertainment suffers its first sales and profit decline since launching Puzzle & Dragons, as sales dipped 5 percent year-on-year.
• Continuing the downward trend, Glu Mobile saw its Q3 sales down 21 percent while EA's mobile sales dropped 34 percent in a dark quarter.
• Conversely, Capcom's sales were up 17 percent year-on-year thanks in no small part to Monster Hunter 4 for the 3DS while Sony's mobile's 39.3 percent sales surge helped mitigate its losses.
• Buttressed by the Lumia, Nokia posted an impressive quarter with sales up more than 200 percent year-on-year.
  

North West England Week
This week, we took a look at the gaming scene in North West England.

• First, we examined how Chillingo is using EA's power to become the ultimate indie advocate.
• Next, we examined how Bizarre Creations is breathing fresh life into Liverpool
• And finally, we shined some light on how the indies are bringing Manchester back from the brink.