Thanks to the time we spent in the GameHorizon conference in Gateshead, UK, it has been an exceptionally busy week in the world of PocketGamer.biz; the world of app stores, smartphone platforms, developments in mobile game making and assorted technology.

The two day event generated plenty of headlines, not least a storming keynote from Zynga's Louis Castle.

Indeed, in the week the social publisher finally filed for a $1 billion IPO - on the back of 232 million monthly active users, Q1 2011 turnover of $235 million and profits of $12 million - Castle stated that "Games want to be free".

Conversely, Epic's Mark Rein argued that if the company's Infinity Blade had been a freemium game, it would have had to be downloaded 30 times more than it was to do the same business. The game has generated $11.2 million of net revenue on a production budget of $1.9 million.

And that was one of the triggers for the article - Five seemingly contradictory things we learned from GameHorizon 2011.

Need a helping hand?

One trend this week that certainly wasn't contradictory was the number of companies getting serious when it comes to the game development aggregation and incubation business.

The highest profile entrant was Bungie, which announced its indie-focused Bungie Aerospace mobile social partnership program. Korean mobile publisher Gamevil is thinking similarly, launching a $10 million fund to acquire thirdparty content.

In addition, US game seed specialist Joystick Labs launched an accelerator program, while Unity Technologies is expanding internally, setting up a Swedish studio, headed by ex-DICE staffers.

Finally, social network PapayaMobile revealed its Gateway to China program, to enabled Android developers to get their content into China, via app stores and also in terms of embedded deals. Companies such as BulkyPix, Kiloo, Connect2Media, Mindstorm Studios and Digital Prunes have already signed up.

Billing or advertising?

Billing always provides news. Most significant was Boku, which announced its operator billing solution for Android IAP is available in 56 countries. More regionally, Digital Chocolate signed up with OpenMarket to deliver in-app billing on 3UK handsets.

Of course, monetisation doesn't required billing - something Fiksu CEO Micah Adler argues. Its advertising-led user acquisition platform has already driven 55 million app downloads.

Some people don't even think apps matter: MocoSpace CEO Justin Siegel said HTML5 will drive ubiquitous mobile gaming. Meanwhile EA spoke about how its meta-game-cross-platform Origin system would drive community, activity and downloads as players of games such as FIFA and Battlefield interact with each other.

Numbers, numbers

The week was also notable for the number of reports from research companies. Nielsen reckons US smartphone penetration has reached 38 percent, while comScore's focus on Japan revealed that Google's OS is bigger than iOS - 4.6 million to 3.9 million.

Going global and future, Pyramid Research claimed smartphone unit sales in 2015 will be 982 million-strong; smartphones accounting for 53 percent of the market.

When it comes to apps numbers, Canalys projected in 2011 $7.3 billion will be generated, rising to $14.1 million by 2012. IDC took a different approach, predicting 182 billion apps would be downloaded by 2015, up from 38 billion in 2011.

Still, estimates aside, it was revealed there are more than 100,000 iPad apps available, while Google had figures of its own, tweeting it is now activating over 500,000 Android devices daily.

These are the sort of numbers HP-owned Palm is very unlikely to match - or perhaps even wants to - with its just released TouchPad tablet. There are also rumours a 7-inch version could be released in August, while other companies are in talks to licence its underlying webOS.

But saddest news of the week came from RIM, which appears to be in executive meltdown. Following what was reported to be a letter from senior executive, and laughed it off as a 'transitional problem', the following day RIM had to bow to shareholder pressure, agreeing to evaluate the roles of joint-CEOs Lazaridis and Balsillie.

What will next week bring we wonder?