Ceremony takes place on the evening of Tuesday, January 22nd at the prestigious BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, London

The finalists for the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards in association with Game Insight have officially been revealed.

This list represents the cream of the crop of the mobile games industry, from the top games and developers delighting players around the world, to the tools and services companies laying the foundations for success.

After an extensive lobbying process and many hours of deliberation over the final shortlist, you can now see those who made the cut below.

Most of the awards will now be decided by a panel of games industry judges, recognising the hard work of the teams and individuals that have shined over the last year.

The winners will be announced during the awards ceremony on the evening of Tuesday, January 22nd at the prestigious BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, London.

Mobile Stars

This year we added a few new awards: Best Audio/Visual Accomplishment, Best Storytelling, Best Game Engine, Best Service Provider and Eastern Trailblazer.

There are 20 awards in total up for grabs at this year’s ceremony. Fighting for the accolades are 128 companies.

Leading the pack with the most nominations are Tencent (Arena of Valor), Epic Games (Fortnite), Niantic (Pokemon Go), Zynga (Gram Games and NaturalMotion) and indie developer Mountains (Florence) with three each.

The Mobile Legend and Eastern Trailblazer, awards which recognise individuals that have made a significant impact on the mobile games industry, will be revealed at a later date.

The Pocket Gamer People’s Choice meanwhile – an accolade voted for by fans – will begin the nominations process next week, before kicking off voting in December.

The Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards in association with Game Insight will take place after the second day of Pocket Gamer Connects on Tuesday, January 22nd 2019.

It will be hosted at the prestigious BAFTA 195 Piccadilly, London.

For sponsorship details please email Chris James at [email protected].

Don’t forget to register for a ticket to attend the Mobile Games Awards ceremony.

A big thank you to Mobile Games Awards 2019 sponsors Game Insight, Playdemic, Lockwood Publishing and AppOnboard.

The Mobile Games Awards 2019 finalists

Game of the Year

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

Best Developer

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

Best Indie Developer

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

Best Publisher

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

Best Live Ops

• 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
• Pokémon GO – Niantic
• Subway Surfers – SYBO Games

Best Audio/Visual Accomplishment

• Alto’s Odyssey – Team Alto
• Asphalt 9: Legends – Gameloft
• ELOH – Broken Rules
• Florence – Mountains
• Homo Machina – Darjeeling
• Only When Howling – Kimberly Savory
• Shadowgun Legends – Madfinger Games
• The Room: Old Sins – Fireproof Games

Best Storytelling

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

Best GAAS Tools & Tech

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

Best Game Engine

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

Best Advertising & UA

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

Best Marketing Team

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

Best Analytics and Data Tool

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

Best QA and Localisation

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

Best Technological innovation

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

Best Tools Provider

• Game of Whales
• Haxe Foundation
• Machine
• Megacool
• Perforce
• Skillz
• Synative
• Wappier

Best Recruitment Agency

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

Best Service Provider

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

Mobile Legend

To be announced

Eastern Trailblazer

To be announced

Pocket Gamer People’s Choice

This nominations process for this player-voted award will begin the week of November 26th.

Best of luck to all the finalists and a big thanks to everyone who lobbied.

Article By Craig Chapple
Pocket Gamer Biz