Mobile gaming awards winners announced
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month, the International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) announced the winners for 2008. This was a culmination of entries from 400 developers from 42 countries competing for $40,000 in prizes over five categories. The winners were selected by a jury of specialists from Japan, US and Europe, with the 25 nominees coming from the US, China, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Thailand, India, UK, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Spain, Poland, Sweden and Australia.
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The ‘Best Casual Game Award’ went to ‘Treasure Arm’, produced and published by Tequila Mobile from Poland, and ‘Furby Island’, produced and published by LemonQuest from Spain, won the ‘Best Licensed IP-Based Game Award’. The ‘Excellence in 3D’ award went to Digital Legends in Spain for ‘ONE’ published by Nokia, Jadestone from Sweden received the ‘Excellence in Gameplay’ award for ‘Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol’, published by Nokia, and the IMGA Jury decided not to hand out the ‘Excellence in Connectivity’ award this year.
The US$ 15,000 ‘Grand Prix’ went to Ideaworks3D from the UK with ‘Metal Gear Solid Mobile’, published by Konami.
The IMGA launched two new awards this year: the ‘Operator’s Choice Award’ and the ‘People’s Choice Award’.
The ‘Operators Choice Award’, selected by a jury of mobile operators from the 25 nominated games, went to the ‘Grand Prix’ winner, Ideaworks3D with ‘Metal Gear Solid Mobile’, published by Konami.
The ‘People’s Choice Award’ was handed over to Firemint from Australia with the game ‘WRC’ (‘World Rally Championship’) published by I-play. This was the result of a ‘Web and Wap’ public vote.
“This year’s standard of entries has demonstrated just how far mobile games have developed over the past few years,” said Dr Mark Ollila, director of technology and strategy and head of games publishing, Nokia. “We are naturally thrilled to have won both the ‘Excellence in Gameplay’ award for ‘Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol’ and the ‘Excellence in 3D’ award for ‘ONE’.”
“We have been involved with the IMGA since 2006 and were pleasantly surprised to see an overall improvement in the quality of entries as well as an increasing use of Flash Lite in extremely innovative games,” stated Mark Doherty manager of developer relations at Adobe Mobile and Devices (EMEA).
“The fourth IMGA was a big step forward for us,” said Maarten Noyons, CEO and founder of the IMGA. “We’ve had the largest, most widespread and richest participation since 2004, with two new awards to encourage a new level of entry. Moreover, a partnership with the GSM Association gives us a front row seat at the Mobile World Congress. Equally, the partnership with Buongiorno fuelled the ‘People’s Choice Award’ efficiently through Wap voting and game delivery to journalists worldwide.”
“Our delivery platform, one of the multi-faceted end-to-end storefront solutions Buongiorno offers to support the future of the games industry, has proven to be a reliable tool in promoting the awards and innovation in mobile games,” said Fernando González Mesones, head of global marketing, product and supply, Buongiorno. “We are very happy with this partnership and will definitely leverage on our 100+ global carriers agreements to get distribution for some of the winners.”
“Texas Instruments are delighted to be involved in this IMGA initiative that fosters creativity and innovation,” said Bryce Johnstone, wireless ecosystem manager. “We have been hugely impressed with the improvement in quality and experience of the IMGA entries this year and we look forward to seeing many deployed on TI based phones in the future.”
Mark Smith, media communications director of the GSMA added, “We are delighted with the success of this first event in collaboration with the IMGA and we look forward to continuing this collaboration in order to establish a real focus on mobile games at this key mobile industry event.”
More information can be found on the International Mobile Gaming Awards website.
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© Chilli Publishing Ltd 2008 |
25 FEB 2008 |
