The Finalists for 2023

POCKET GAMER PEOPLE’S CHOICE

This is the only award nominated by and voted for by consumers, and recognises the best new game to have received a full release during the previous year. The People’s Choice Award runs both its submission and voting phases through PocketGamer.com, with the winner revealed on the night of the ceremony.

The People’s Choice Award is shortlisted by the expert journalists at Pocket Gamer following readers’ submissions, and voted for directly by the games playing public directly on www.pocketgamer.com – this year’s finalists can be found below and the voting is live here.

• Desta: The Memories Between
• Diablo Immortal
• Dicey Dungeons
• Disney Mirrorverse
• Dungeons of Dreadrock
• Football Manager 2023
• Friends & Dragons – Puzzle RPG
• Horizon Chase 2
• Marvel Snap
• Monster Train
• NERF: Superblast
• Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds
• Phobies
• Pikmin Bloom
• Rocket League Sideswipe
• Royal Merge!
• Sumire
• Vampire Survivors
• Warhammer 40000: Tacticus
• Wild Things Animal Adventures

BEST ADVERTISING & UA

This accolade is for companies that support the ecosystem through enabling user acquisition or monetisation through advertising and are helping to drive this fast-growing business in games and developers to acquire more users.

• AdInMo
• Adjoe
• Anzu.io
• AppLovin
• Bidstack
• Chartboost
• GameChangerSF powered by Pixis
• ironSource
• Meta Audience Network
• Mintegral
• Odeeo
• Pangle
• Persona.ly
• Unity Ads

BEST ANALYTICS/DATA TOOL

Any company that supports developers and publishers develop their games and run marketing campaigns through analytics tools and/or providing data on market performance.

• Adjust Datascape
• AppsFlyer
• AppTweak
• ByteBrew
• data.ai (formerly App Annie)
• Dive
• GameAnalytics
• Sensor Tower
• Smadex Multidimensional Reporting
• Unity Analytics

BEST DEVELOPER

Any mobile games company with 11 or more staff that has released a game, or successfully grown an existing game, during 2022, as well as successfully expanded their business and made an impact on the industry through innovation, creativity and other initiatives.

• Devsisters
• East Side Games
• King
• Kolibri Games
• Lilith Games
• Murka Games
• SciPlay
• Second Dinner
• Snowprint Studios
• Sybo Games
• TapNation
• Trailmix
• Tripledot Studios
• ustwo games

BEST GAAS TOOLS & TECH

This award recognises the companies that are supporting live games on the market through back-end services to ensure game servers run smoothly and help developers implement special online features.

• Amazon GameLift
• Azure PlayFab
• brainCloud
• Gridly
• LootLocker
• Multiscription
• Photon
• Unity Gaming Services
• UserWise

BEST AUDIO/VISUAL ACCOMPLISHMENT

This accolade is for any game pushing the boundaries of the medium through audio and/or visual accomplishments. To be eligible for this award, games must have been given a full release (or received a significant and noteworthy expansion) during 2022.

• Candy Crush Saga
• Desta: The Memories Between
• Diablo Immortal
• Gear.Club Stradale
• Gunfire Reborn
• Homeworld Mobile
• Magic Spellslingers
• One Hand Clapping
• Streets of Rage 4
• T3 Arena
• To the Dragon Cave
• Who Muted Uncle Marcus?

BEST GAME ENGINE/PLATFORM

This award is open to third-party tech companies that provide game engines or game creation platforms that are instrumental in enabling or powering mobile games development.

• Cocos Creator
• Construct 3
• Godot
• Roblox
• Unity
• Unreal Engine
• Virtual Dawn Academy
• Yahaha

BEST STORYTELLING

This award recognises games that show stellar writing and narrative design. To be eligible for this award, games must have been given a full release during 2022, or for titles released before this date have received significant new content in the last year.

• Desta: The Memories Between
• Hindsight
• Immortality
• Oxenfree: Netflix Edition
• Spiritfarer
• Star Trek: Lower Decks – The Badgey Directive
• The Rude Awakening
• We’ll Always Have Paris

RISING STAR

This special award recognises a person from any corner of the globe who has demonstrated a considerable amount of success, influence, and impact despite their relatively recent arrival within the mobile games industry.

A new addition since 2020, this is the first year this award was open for nominations. The winner is subsequently selected by the organisation committee of the Mobile Games Awards.

TO BE ANNOUNCED DURING THE AWARDS CEREMONY IN APRIL.

BEST TOOLS PROVIDER

This award is open to any company providing dedicated tools for developers that assist in the creation of games for mobile platforms. (This does not include game engines – please see separate relevant category.)

• AWS for Games (A4G)
• Game UI Database
• GameRefinery, a Liftoff company
• Geeklab
• Nekki
• Simpool
• Thoughtfish (COALA)
• Unity (Unity Gaming Services)

BEST SERVICE PROVIDER

This award is for any third-party service provider or outsourcer that supports developers in making games, whether through art, audio, trailers, UX, payment provision or other services.

• Allcorrect
• Amber Studio
• Brunette Games
• Code Wizards
• Dive
• Flixr Studios
• Game Art Brain
• Games Jobs Direct
• Layer
• One Player Mission (OPM)
• PaybyMe
• Xsolla

BEST LIVE OPS

This award recognises the impact of significant updates, in-game events or excellent community management in the last year for games released previously, that have helped take a game to the next level and sustain a title’s life.

• 8 Ball Pool
• Call of Duty: Mobile
• Clash of Clans
• Genshin Impact
• Love & Pies – Merge Mystery
• Pokemon Go
• PUBG Mobile
• Raid: Shadow Legends
• Rise of Kingdoms
• Rush Royale
• Stumble Guys
• Subway Surfers

BEST QA & LOCALISATION SERVICE PROVIDER

This accolade awards companies that have supported mobile games over the last year in the areas of quality assurance and localisation, ensuring that both new releases and updates go live with as few hiccups as possible, and are localised appropriately for target markets.

• Allcorrect
• Amber Studio
• GameScribes
• Helpshift
• Lionbridge Games
• LocalizeDirect
• PTW
• Testronic
• TransPerfect Gaming Solutions
• Universally Speaking

BEST INDIE DEVELOPER

This accolade recognises the achievements of a small team of developers that have released a game, or successfully grown an existing game, during the last year.

• AbhiTechGames Studios
• Adriaan de Jongh
• Bart Bonte
• Christoph Minnameier
• Lessmore
• Minidragon
• Pershaland
• Pixel Play
• Rusty Lake
• Snap Finger Click

BEST PR/MARKETING TEAM

This award recognises the best third-party PR agency or internal marketing team that has created campaigns fuelling the growth of games over the last year. This can be through any medium, including online, TV or other.

• AppQuantum (PR Department)
• Big Games Machine
• Dimoso (Yahaha Studios and Ludo AI campaigns)
• King (Candy Crush 10 Years of Fun campaign)
• Kotak Media Digital
• My.Games (Rush Royale Marketing Team)
• Nativex (The Ants: Underground Kingdom Brazilian campaign)
• Nuverse (‘Replace Nick Fury’ Marvel Snap campaign)
• Playtika (Bingo Blitz Marketing Team)
• Raptor PR
• Sybo Games (#subwaysurfers10years campaign)
• Zynga (Communications Team)

BEST ALTERNATIVE APP STORE

As mobile continues its expansion into new markets and Google Play and Apple App Store open up a little, third-party app stores become ever more important part of the industry. This award celebrates the other portals that have done the most to grow during 2022.

• Amazon Appstore
• AppGallery
• Aptoide
• GetJar
• Opera Mobile Store
• Oppo Software Store
• Samsung Galaxy Store
• SlideMe
• TapTap

INVESTMENT FUND OF THE YEAR

A recent addition to our roster, this award showcases an investment within the mobile games industry that has played a vital role in the success and growth of a company during 2022.

• 1Up Ventures
• Andreessen Horowitz
• Bitkraft Ventures
• Griffin Gaming Partners
• Hiro Capital
• LVP
• Makers Fund
• Play Ventures
• Playstudios
• Sisu Game Ventures
• Transcend Fund
• vgames

BEST PUBLISHER

Celebrating a company that has supported another developer in releasing a game on mobile devices during the last year, whether through publishing support, marketing, co-development or investment.

• Babil Games
• Homa
• Kwalee
• Jam City
• Miniclip
• Netflix Games
• Nuverse
• Scopely
• Tamatem Games
• Tilting Point
• XD Inc
• Zynga

MOST PROMISING AI GAMES TECH

“Alexa, which company over the last year has consistently delivered the most impressive set of AI-assisted tools for mobile game creation?”

• Cascadeur
• Charisma
• Chat GPT by Open AI
• Kinetix
• Ludo AI
• Midjourney
• Simpool
• Solsten

MOST IMPACTFUL WEB3 COMPANY

New for 2023, this award recognises the company that has played the most active role in paving the road for the next World Wide Web.

• Animoca Brands
• Freeverse
• Gala Games
• Glip.gg
• ImmutableX
• Mythical Games
• Reality+
• Redlight Finance
• The Sandbox
• Venly
• Wolffun
• Zebedee

GAME OF THE YEAR

This award recognises the finest mobile gaming experience released last year based on creativity, play mechanics, technological, artistic and aural achievement, innovation, audience engagement, and both critical and commercial success.

To be eligible for this award, games must have been given a full release during 2022.

• Catalyst Black
• Desta: The Memories Between
• Diablo Immortal
• Homeworld Mobile
• Hunt & Seek
• Into The Breach
• Iron Marines Invasion
• Lucky Luna
• Marvel Snap
• NERF Superblast
• Poinpy
• Streets of Rage 4
• Subway Surfers Tag
• T3 Arena
• Tap Force
• Text Express: Word Adventure
• The Past Within
• Torchlight: Infinite
• Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus
• Wild Things Animal Adventures

MOBILE LEGEND

This illustrious lifetime achievement award recognises a person from any mobile gaming territory who has achieved a considerable amount of success in their career and has acted as a pioneer in, and made an outstanding contribution to, the mobile games space.

The Mobile Legend is a special award, selected directly by the organisation committee of the Mobile Games Awards.

The Mobile Legend is a special award to recognise an outstanding contribution to the mobile games industry selected directly by the organisation committee of the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards.

TO BE ANNOUNCED DURING THE AWARDS CEREMONY IN APRIL.