It’s been a big week for mobile, especially in the gaming arena.  Mobile games are some of the top-grossing, most popular apps on the market, and their influence is growing stronger by the day.  Here’s a brief look at what’s been going on in the mobile industry lately, spanning new games, new platforms and new monetization formats.

First up, we have Zynga, which recently acquired social mobile game developer Area/Code, responsible for titles including “Drop7” and “CSI Crime City” for iPhone and Android. The sum of the acquisition was not disclosed. In addition to further boosting its mobile present, the acquisition marks the opening of Zynga New York, just one of the latest developments in the game company’s global expansion.

Mobile games are the most commonly download mobile apps, and Zynga is heading to expand its turf in a market expected to be worth $15 billion within 3 years. Nevertheless, Zynga is not the only one who got its eyes on this accelerating market, or at least on a very big chunk of it. Japanese mobile game platform operator Gree announced it has agreed to develop a mobile social gaming platform for the Chinese internet service giant Tencent Holdings. The platform modeled after Gree’s existing platform will enable its developers to deliver their games to Tencent, and the 120 million and growing Chinese mobile game users it will target.

Mobile gaming had seen a lot of activity recently, and that includes Angry Birds. We discussed how Angry Birds was knocked out from its position as the top iPhone app out by the free Bubble Ball. Earlier, we discussed Angry Birds’ expansion to Playstation 3 and PlayStation Portable, taking the animal brawl far beyond the mobile realm.  Another big story in mobile gaming this past week was the launch of Kongregate Arcade for Android. The app was later removed from Android Market, but has since returned after a few tweaks were made to appease Google’s terms.

Beyond gaming, mobile platform news from this week has had some interesting twists. A revived possibility that RIM may open up its upcoming PlayBook and other devices’ platforms to allow Android apps run on QNX OS just emerged. Also, Zune and Xbox may come to Canada soon, and Nokia reported a 21% plunge in profits for Q4 2010, with new CEO Stephen Elop hinting that support for other mobile operating systems may be a short-term solution to get the company back on track.