Winners of International Mobile Gaming Awards Announced

Currently the world's largest mobile game awards ceremony, the IMGAs bring in over 400 developers from 42 countries to compete for $40, 000 worth of prizes in five categories. This year's event took place in the crowded GSMA's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and featured judges from Japan, Europe and the US -- including Modojo's own Justin Davis (way to move up there Justin); their job, to scrutinize 25 nominated games from the US China, Japan, Korea, Philippines, Thailand, India, UK, Netherlands, France, Denmark, Spain, Poland, Sweden and Australia.

The results ended up looking something like this:

Best casual game - Treasure Arm (Tequila Mobile)
Best licensed IP-based game - Furby Island (LemonQuest)
Excellence in 3D - ONE (Digital Legends)
Excellence in gameplay - Dirk Dagger/The Fallen Idol (Jadestone)

For reasons that are currently undisclosed, the excellence in connectivity award was not given out this year. In any case, Spain seems to be coming up strong in the mobile world.

The show also introduced two new awards including the Operator's Choice award, which is essentially a game that's nominated by the nominees, and the People's Choice Award, which is self explanatory. Winners for these two categories were Metal Gear Solid Mobile from Ideaworks3D (Konami) and World Rally Championship (Firemint)

"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'. N-Gage is committed to providing its customers with the best possible mobile games so it's great to be recognized so early on for this. We are looking forward to delivering even better and more exciting games over the next year."

"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."

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. Our congratulations go out to all the winners."