International Mobile Gaming Awards results
Posted by M (21 Feb 2007, 10:31 a.m. NZDT)
The jury of the International Mobile Gaming Awards has picked six winners out of the 26 nominees from the US, China, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, India, UK, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Spain, Poland, Sweden and Australia.
The 2006 edition presented a new breed of games never presented before: outdoor, location based gaming, high-end 3D, MM mobile games, mobile-to-PC and mobile-to-TV games and games using all the features of the new generation of mobile devices, including connectivity, cameras and microphones. These avant-garde games that are paving the way for tomorrow's mobile entertainment were brought to the spotlight last Wednesday in a crowded Fira Palace Hotel, in front of the press and hundreds of representatives of the industry.
TNO, the largest research institute in the Netherlands, with 4000 professionals in many disciplines, received the US$15,000 Grand Prix Award and the US$5,000 Most Innovative Game Award for its game Triangler, an outdoor, mobile multiplayer game using GPS.
IKS Mobile from Poland walked away with the $5,000 Best Use of Flash Award with Crazy Matches, while the Australian-based studio Firemint was awarded the $5,000 Excellence in 3D Award with Mega Monster. The $5,000 Best Interactive Experience Award was collected by SuperHappyFunFun from the USA with 3DTiltAWorld and Anino Mobile received the $5,000 Best Use of Connectivity Award with the multiplayer game Anima Wars.
In addition to the prizes, each of the winners will be supported by the coalition of IMGA sponsors Adobe, Movida, Nokia, Nvidia, Orange, Texas Instruments and co-sponsors Auchan Télécom, Belle-de-Mai Media Park Marseille and Vivendi Games Mobile to bring their games to market.
IMGA judging panelist and mobile game developer Matthew Bellows commented: "The International Mobile Game Awards supports and encourages the highest potential of our emerging creative medium. By acknowledging and celebrating the designers, programmers and artists who build groundbreaking mobile games, the IMGA does our industry, and our society, a tremendous service. I have had the pleasure of being involved in mobile games since 2001, and I'm inspired by the level of quality and imagination on display at this year's awards."
Sponsors, Adobe, Movida, Nokia, Nvidia, Orange, Texas Instruments, Auchan Télécom, Vivendi Games Mobile and Belle de Mai Media Park all see the awards as a valuable platform for fostering and pioneering advances in mobile gaming:
"With over 200 million Flash enabled devices shipped worldwide, the opportunity for developers to create richer and more engaging mobile entertainment content has grown dramatically," said Francisco Kattan, director of product marketing and developer relations, Mobile and Devices at Adobe. "We are very excited about the level of innovation and creativity we've seen in the submissions for the International Mobile Gaming Awards this year."
"15 out of the 25 finalists demonstrated a growing trend of developing social connected gaming experiences and entirely new genres, proving that the future of mobile gaming will be about connecting gamers to other gamers for a multi-dimensional mobile gaming experience," says Kamar Shah, Global Head of Industry Marketing, Multimedia Experiences, Nokia. "Congratulations to TNO who has created a new benchmark for the next twelve months in terms of innovation and gameplay".
Neil Trevett, Vice President of Embedded Content at NVIDIA and President of the Khronos Group, who handed out the Excellence in 3D Award commented: "The level of innovation from this years entrants in using 3D graphics to create compelling experiences on handheld devices shows how quickly the developer community is adapting to use the unique properties of mobile phones such as personalisation, mobility and connectivity. Handhelds are evolving unique 3D gaming genres that are so much more than just downsized PC and console games."
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