The Winners of 2019

GAME OF THE YEAR

WINNER: Fortnite – Epic Games

This award recognised the best mobile game released over the preceding year based on creativity, innovation and success.
To be eligible for this award, games must have been given a full release from October 1 2017 onwards.

FINALISTS:

• Badland Brawl – Frogmind
• PUBG Mobile – Lightspeed & Quantum Studios (A Tencent studio)
• Marvel Strike Force – FoxNext Games
• Holedown – Grapefrukt games
• Helix Jump – H8 Games
• New Star Manager – New Star Games
• Jurassic World Alive – Ludia
• The Walking Dead: Our World – Next Games
• Legend of Solgard – Snowprint Studios

BEST DEVELOPER

WINNER: Epic Games

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

FINALISTS:

• Gram Games
• Jam City
• King
• Kolibri Games
• NetEase
• Niantic
• Pixel Toys
• Big Pixel Studios
• Small Giant Games

BEST INDIE DEVELOPER

WINNER: Kukouri Mobile Entertainment

This accolade recognised the achievements of a team of up to 10 developers that have released a game, or successfully grown an existing game, during the preceding year.

FINALISTS:

• Ben Esposito
• Buried Signal
• Game Revenant
• Mountains
• Nerial
• Simteractive
• Team Alto
• The Secret Police
• Tiny Rebel Games

BEST PUBLISHER

WINNER: Voodoo

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

FINALISTS:

• Annapurna Interactive
• BoomBit
• Tencent
• Lion Studios
• PlayStack
• Tamatem
• Round Zero
• Scopely
• Tilting Point

BEST GAME ENGINE

WINNER: Unity

This award was open to third-party tech companies that provide game engines that help power mobile games development.

FINALISTS:

• Corona
• Defold
• GameMaker Studio 2
• Gideros
• Unreal Engine
• Cocos2d-x
• Construct 3

BEST TOOLS PROVIDER

WINNER: Game of Whales

This award was open to any company providing tools for developers to help make games for mobile platforms. This does not include game engines.

FINALISTS:

• Machine
• Haxe Foundation
• Megacool
• Perforce
• Skillz
• Synative
• Wappier

BEST ADVERTISING & UA

WINNER: Facebook

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

FINALISTS:

• AdTiming
• Appodeal
• AppOnboard
• Google Ads
• IronSource
• Unity Ads
• Vungle

BEST MARKETING TEAM

WINNER: Seriously

This award recognised the best internal or third-party marketing team that had created campaigns fueling the growth of games over the preceeding year. This could be through any medium, including online, TV or other.

FINALISTS:

• Four Thirty Three
• FoxNext Games
• Netmarble US
• Next Games
• Peak Games
• Space Ape Games
• Outplay

BEST ANALYTICS/DATA TOOL

WINNER: AppsFlyer

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

FINALISTS:

• AppCalibre
• deltaDNA
• GameAnalytics
• GameRefinery
• Libring
• Ogury
• Sensor Tower

BEST QA & LOCALISATION SERVICE PROVIDER

WINNER: Keywords Studios

This accolade awarded companies that supported mobile games over the preceding year in the areas of quality assurance and localisation, ensured that both new releases and updates went live with as few problems as possible and were localised appropriately for target markets.

FINALISTS:

• Amber Studio
• GameScribes
• GlobalStep
• MoGi Group
• Pole To Win
• Testronic
• Universally Speaking

BEST TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

WINNER: Niantic Real World Platform

Any developer or technology company that pushed the boundaries of what’s possible on mobile devices through a new technology, be it hardware or software. This could be an innovative tool or unique use of technology that benefited the industry as a whole.

FINALISTS:

• AppOnboard’s App Store Demos
• ARKit 2
• Hatch
• SpatialOS
• Razer Phone 2
• VK Direct Games
• WeChat Mini Games

BEST GAAS TOOLS & TECH

WINNER: Photon

This award recognised 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.

FINALISTS:

• ChilliConnect
• GameSparks
• Heroic Labs
• PlayFab
• XtraLife
• Akamai
• Tencent Cloud

BEST RECRUITMENT AGENCY

WINNER: Amiqus

Any recruitment agency that over the preceding year had supported mobile game companies in finding and employing the best staff to develop new games, create new tools or offer key services.

FINALISTS:

• Aardvark Swift
• Datascope
• Games Factory Talents
• Games Jobs Finland
• Interactive
• OPM Response
• Scede

BEST AUDIO/VISUAL ACCOMPLISHMENT

WINNER: Asphalt 9: Legends – Gameloft

This accolade was 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 from October 1st 2017 onwards.

FINALISTS:

• Alto’s Odyssey – Team Alto
• Only When Howling – Kimberly Savory
• ELOH – Broken Rules
• Florence – Mountains
• Homo Machina – Darjeeling
• Shadowgun Legends – Madfinger Games
• The Room: Old Sins – Fireproof Games

BEST STORYTELLING

WINNER: Florence – Mountains

This award recognised games that showed stellar writing and narrative design. To be eligible for this award, games must have been given a full release from October 1st 2017, or for titles released before this date to have received significant new content in the preceeding year.

FINALISTS:

• DERE EVIL EXE – AppSir
• G30 – A Memory Maze – Ivan Kovalov
• Love Island: The Game – Fusebox Games
• My Child Lebensborn – Sarepta Studio
• Powerless – Narratio Studios
• Reigns: Her Majesty – Nerial
• Another Lost Phone: Laura’s Story – Accidental Queens
• The Room: Old Sins – Fireproof Games

BEST LIVE OPS

WINNER: Pokémon GO – Niantic

This award recognised the impact of significant updates, in-game events or excellent community management over the preceeding year for games released in 2017 or before, that have helped take a game to the next level and sustain a title’s life.

FINALISTS:

• CSR Racing 2 – NaturalMotion
• Empires & Puzzles – Small Giant Games
• Fastlane: Road to Revenge – Space Ape Games
• Guns of Boom – Game Insight
• Idle Miner Tycoon – Kolibri Games
• Merge Dragons! – Gram Games
• Subway Surfers – SYBO Games

BEST SERVICE PROVIDER

WINNER: Matchmade

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

FINALISTS:

• SafeDK
• Cellense
• Lab Cave
• Player Research
• Zorka.Mobi
• The Specialist Works
• Maverick Media

EASTERN TRAILBLAZER

WINNER: Jeff Lyndon

This special award recognises a person from an Eastern country who has achieved considerable success in the region and on a global scale, whether in recent times or throughout their career.

The Eastern Trailblazer was a special award to recognise the success of those who play a key role in games companies in the East, which had an increasingly influential role in global mobile games industry growth. It was selected directly by the organisation committee of the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards.

MOBILE LEGEND

WINNER: Tommy Palm

This special lifetime achievement award recognised a person from anywhere in the world who has achieved a considerable amount of success in their career and has acted as a pioneer in the mobile games space.

The Mobile Legend was 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.

POCKET GAMER PEOPLE’S CHOICE

WINNER: World of Warships Blitz – Wargaming

This was the only award voted for by consumers and recognised the best new game that received a full release during the preceding year. This award was open for voting through PocketGamer.co.uk, with the winner revealed on the night.

The People’s Choice Award was shortlisted by the expert journalists at Pocket Gamer and voted for directly by the games playing public directly on www.pocketgamer.co.uk