The PocketGamer.biz week that was: Pocket Gamer touches down at WWDC 2012, Android hits 900,000 daily activations as Nokia culls 10,000 jobs

While freemium may be increasingly prevalent in the world of mobile gaming, it's easy to forget the naked hostility with which many so-called 'core' gamers still regard the concept.

Veteran game designer Peter Molyneux isn't the hostile sort, though, and earlier this week he was claiming "amazing things can happen" when a monetisation model is well designed and well implemented.

And he's putting his money where his mouth is - the first game from his new studio 22Cans will be a free-to-play title backed by in-app purchases, the most expensive of which is £50,000.

Molyneux isn't alone, either. Valve has embraced free-to-play with Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2, Crytek's hopped aboard the wagon as well, and this week saw EA and PlayStation both edging closer to freemium.

So while some are still bemoaning 'pay-to-win' mechanics and arguing about the devaluation of gaming properties, others are enjoying the spoils of a model that removes the barrier between player and play - whether on console, PC, or mobile.

Anyway, that's enough yabbering for now. Without further ado, here's our bite-sized overview of the important industry happenings of the last seven days.

• GREE begins courting Western gamers with the launch of its first global website - Come Play GREE.
• Flurry research shows almost 70 percent of new apps are being developed for iOS...
• ...Despite the fact that more than 900,000 Android devices are now being activated each day...
• ...and Android apps are downloaded more than iPhone apps in every one of the EU5 nations.
• Intel claims that multi-core processors are often 'a detriment' to Android handsets, since the platform simply isn't optimised to take advantage of their power.
• More than 100,000 apps have now been published to the Windows Phone Marketplace, and over 12,000 of them are games.
• Ubisoft proudcer Andreane Meunier reckons GREE is the perfect platform to bring the hardcore Assassin's Creed brand to smartphones.
• Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz claims Zynga lost 5 million daily active users on Facebook last month, and its playerbase is migrating to mobile.
• It's too early to write off the PS Vita, argues Ubisoft's Tony Key, and big releases will see increasing consumer interest around Christmas 2012.
• Microsoft will make an 'important announcement' on 18 June, with speculation suggesting a first-party Windows 8 tablet reveal.
• Wooga and PopCap have pulled games from Google+, with a Wooga representative explaining the games simply have 'a much larger following on Facebook.

• Facebook has acquired the team behind Pieceable - a tool that lets businesses demo native iOS apps in a web browser - for an undisclosed sum.
• Activision has partnered with Flurry to launch publishing initiative for indie devs on iOS and Android.
• Rumours suggested that Nokia was looking to sell its luxury phone brand Vertu to a European private equity firm...
• ...Which is exactly what happened - although the news came as the Finnish firm lowered it Q2 2012 outlook and announced plans to cut 10,000 jobs by the end of 2013.

• Pocket Gamer editor in chief Kristan Reed argues that E3 desperately needs to change if it's to actually represent the games industry.
• PocketGamer.biz editor Jon Jordan ponders the reasoning behind the lack of exciting reveals at WWDC 2012.
• Glu CEO Niccolo de Masi claims that HTML5 won't be a viable alternative a to native apps for another five or ten years.
• iQU's Fraser MacInnes provides a one-stop guide to mobile and marketing acronyms.
• TIGA CEO Dr Richard Wilson has declared that self-publishing is the 'future of gaming.'

• EA has announced that most of its future mobile games be freemium, a move which SVP and group general manager Nick Earl believes will lead to better games.
• PapayaMobile's Oscar Clark discusses freemium game design and player psychology in a guest column for PocketGamer.biz
• Industry veteran Peter Molyneux argues that 'amazing things can happen' when freemium is done right, and his latest project will test the 'morality of monetisation.'
• All new Pocket Gems titles for Android will exclusively use W3i's monetisation platform.
• Halfbrick partners with app monetisation exchange inneractive to launch a free version of Fruit Ninja on Nokia Store.
• Sony's flirting with freemium for PlayStation Mobile - a platform which SCEE head Jim Ryan claims will cut out the app store 'junk.'

• App store 'complacency' and a lack of innovation when it comes to discoverability means that two-thirds of apps fail to reach 1,000 downloads in their first year, claims Canalys.
• Since Facebook App Center plans to place its top-rated apps front and centre, it will randomly poll users for ratings in order to prevent rating manipulation.
• Russian publisher i-Free Innovations launches an app discovery platform for Android.

• Apple must defend itself against a class action lawsuit alleging that the company allowed advertisers to secretly track iOS user activity.

• Apple announced that 30 billion iOS apps have been downloaded from the App Store, and $5 billion has been paid out to developers since its launch.
• Apple is launching Game Center on OS X, and will support real-time cross-platform multiplayer between iOS and Macs.
• Although a sneaky snap let the cat out of the bag ahead of time, Apple revealed iOS 6 at WWDC ahead of the operating system's autumn launch.