The highly anticipated results of the 7th Annual International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) were announced last week to a packed audience at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
The five nominees in each of the six categories had been waiting since 17 January, when the nominations were announced, to find out who would be the ultimate winner.
The winning games were selected by an international jury of experts, which reviewed a total of 260 games from 40 countries.
The winners of the 7th International Mobile Gaming Awards are as follows:
BEST CASUAL GAME
Plants VS Zombies, Pop Cap, Ireland
BEST REAL WORLD GAME
AR Invaders, Soulbit, Israel
BEST SPORTS GAME
Snowboard Hero, Fishlabs, Germany
EXCELLENCE IN DESIGN
Infinity Blade, Epic Games, USA
EXCELLENCE IN GAMEPLAY
Beyond Ynth, FDG Entertainment, Germany
MOST INNOVATIVE GAME
Papa Sangre, Somethin’ Else, UK
The coveted ‘Grand Prix’ award was won by Beyond Ynth, FDG Entertainment, Germany. As part of the Grand Prix prize, the FDG Entertainment will be introduced directly to the IMGA platinum sponsor, Orange, to discuss potential opportunities.
The two additional categories of the People’s Choice Award, from the IMGA online public vote, went to Perfect Cell, Mobigame, France, and the Operators’ Choice Award, from this year operators involved in the IMGA, went to Snowboard Hero, Fishlabs, Germany.
“We would like to congratulate all the IMGA award winners”, said Raphaël Goumot, Mobile Games Director at Orange. “As part of the jury, I saw the hundreds of entries from all over the world. The standard was incredibly high and it is hugely reassuring to know that mobile gaming, which is such an important part of the mobile industry, is in such a healthy and robust state. Based on the entries we saw, consumers all around the world can look forward to many top quality games coming down the pipeline in the future.”
“This year’s nominees offered a wealth of innovation, visual quality and addictive gameplay,” said Maarten Noyons, CEO and Founder of the IMGA. “The selection of the six category winners and the Grand Prix winner is not only the result of long and very vivid deliberations by the jury but also a lot of fun playing the nominated games.”
Thomas Kern, Beyond Ynth Project Manager: “We´re extremely happy, thankful and proud to have won the 2010 Grand Prix IMGA award. It´s a great honour, especially when looking at the impressive list of nominees. A big THANKS goes out to the jury and our valued customers, who made the production of this game possible.”
During the last seven years the IMGA has reviewed more than 1,400 mobile games from more than 52 countries including the USA, Ukraine, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, China, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Belgium. Participants include PhD students, researchers, artists, individual developers and the top ten mobile games publishers and developers in the world.
For more information about the winners of this year’s awards, or for more information about the IMGA, please visit: www.imgawards.com.