New business-like Santa Monica setting or not, E3 cannot afford to ignore the importance of mobile gaming next time around.

That was the message from I-Play boss David Gosen, following the independent Mobile Games Insider conference that took place in a beach club just ahead of the Xbox press conference on Tuesday evening.

Attracting around 150 key figures from the mobile gaming community, the event was also sponsored by Qualcomm and Nokia, and ran as a discusson forum through the afternoon. It was not officially connected to E3, but was deemed a success by all who attended.

"Mobile gaming is worth $3.3 billion a year already and is forecast to be at $10 billion by 2011. It is too wide a market and too important a market for E3 to just ignore," Gosen told MCV.

"This market is playing a hugely important role introducing people to gaming. We are blazing a trail for the casual gaming boom. I don't understand why mobile should be invisible at E3, that's why we ran this event. Hopefully something can change next year and mobile can be properly involved in the main event."

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