International Mobile Gaming Awards
ANNUAL REPORT 2009 The international mobile gaming awards © 2004–2009 ncc partners s.A.R.L. All rights reserved 25 Cours d’Estienne d’Orves, 13001 Marseille France Tel: +33 491315217 • Fax: +33 491143199 • maarten.noyons@imgawards.com
Dear friends, The Fifth International Mobile Gaming Awards came to an end at the Mobile World Congress on 18 February 2009. We very much appreciate your commitments which have contributed to the success of the Awards this year and we enjoyed every moment of it. I hope you did too. With kind regards, Maarten Noyons CEO and Founder
Executive Summary For the fifth year running, the International Mobile Gaming Awards handed out awards to the most creative and innovative developers in the world. Since we started in 2004, many things have changed in both the industry and the IMGA and we are in the process of producing a book about these 5 IMGA years. Over the period, we have reviewed over a thousand games from over 60 countries and we have handed out more than 150,000 US$ in prizes. During the past 5 years we have been supported by the complete mobile games ecosystem. Nokia and Euroméditerranée have been our sponsors right from the beginning and we are very grateful for their continued support. The IMGA would have been impossible without the additional support of Movida, NVIDIA, Adobe, Orange, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, ARM, AMD, Auchan Télécom, Buongiorno, Alias (now Autodesk) and Vivendi Games Mobile. Chris James, CEO of Steelmedia – the publishers of Pocket Gamer – has played an essential role this year: not only did he present the Awards this year, but was also a member of the jury. Pocket Gamer has been a great media partner over the past 5 years.
We have introduced a new category this year: Real World Games. Due to the quality of the entries and the reactions in the press and from our sponsors, we intend to continue to promote this category in the future. In this context we are busy establishing a partnership with NAVTEQ, the leader in digital maps and the founders of the LBS Challenge. NAVTEQ generously invited us and our jury members to Pueblo Espanyol in Barcelona to select the winners of this year’s awards. We hope to be able to explore this partnership further in the future. The GSM Association and Telecom TV provided us with a great location for the Awards and we hope to be able to explore this partnership as well in the coming years. After 5 years experience with the IMGA I am now looking at a market that is extremely dynamic with large corporations such as Nokia, Apple, Google, Adobe, Microsoft, Samsung, Qualcomm investing heavily in the mobile games industry. We may need to review our pessimistic projections for 2008… Personally, I can’t wait to see the games for the 6th IMGA!
International mobile games awards 2009
2008 MARKETING AND PROMOTION IMGA has set up an e-mail campaign, a telemarketing campaign and presented the Awards at the most important Trade Shows such as: • Game Developers Conference, San Francisco • MIPTV, Cannes • Games Tagen, Munich • ELBES and Nordic games Summit, Malmö, Sweden • GDC, Paris • Mobile Entertainment Market, Cannes
• GCDC, Leipzig • Global Mobile Awards, Seoul • XMedialab, Seoul • CTIA, San Francisco • MIPCOM, Cannes • Nokia Games Summit, Rome • Mobile World Congress, Shanghai.
Maarten Noyons has been lecturing and has sat on moderating panels at: • ELBES and Nordig Games Summit, • Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and Macau • Games Tagen, Munich • GDC, Paris • GCDC, Leipzig
Malmö • Global Mobile Awards, Seoul • Nokia Games Summit, Rome.
wHat is tHe iMGa ? The International Mobile Gaming Awards was launched in 2004 by Maarten Noyons of NCC Partners to recognize and award the most talented mobile game developers in the world. Now, 5 years later we have judged over 1,000 games originating from over 50 countries including the USA, Ukraine, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, China, the Czech Republic, Brazil and Belgium. Participants include PhD students, researchers, artists, individual developers and the top 10 leading mobile games publishers and developers in the world. Over the last five years we have given away over US$ 140,000 in cash prizes. Sponsors of the IMGA include Nokia, NVIDIA, Qualcomm, Adobe, ARM, AMD, Euroméditerranée, Auchan Télécom, Orange Partner, Vivendi Universal Games, Movida, Texas Instruments and Buongiorno.
As well as offering a highly respected award for mobile games, the IMGA is also a worldwide talent scout in mobile games development through, a network of developers, publishers, operators, handset manufacturers and technology providers. Maarten Noyons is invited to speak and moderate at leading conferences worldwide on a variety of subjects related to the mobile games industry.
How does it work ? Each year we launch a new competition for unpublished mobile games. You can enter the competition in 5 distinctive awards categories and you can win up to US $40,000 in cash. The deadline for entries is at the end of September and nominees are announced in October. You will need to send us your finished game before the end of January and we announce the winners at the Mobile World Congress in February, in association with the GSMA.
AwArds CATEGOrIEs Of ThE 5Th IMGA
PrIzEs*
Best reaL worLd GaMe
Us$ 5,000
eXCeLLeNCe iN GaMePLaY
Us$ 5,000
eXCeLLeNCe iN CoNNeCtiVitY
Us$ 5,000
eXCeLLeNCe iN 3d
Us$ 5,000
Best CasUaL GaMe
Us$ 5,000
GraNd PriX
Us$ 15,000
*All amounts are paid out in EUROS and based on the currency exchange rate of 15 June 2008, the date of the launch of the IMGA, being 0.65 EURO to 1.00 US$
International mobile games awards 2009
2008 RESULTS: LESS ENTRIES, BETTER GAMES The 5th IMGA saw an important increase in quality, but a decrease in quantity; only 198 entries, compared to nearly 400 in the previous two years. This result reflects the trend in the industry; studios are tending to focus on fewer, higher quality titles in a market mainly driven by Smartphones. Every entry has been checked for eligibility: games needed to be unpublished and made for mobile. Most of the entries that were disqualified were entries that were not complete (58%) or entries that were already published (26%), the other disqualified entries could not be considered as mobile games (PSP, Pocket PC, non-game applications, etc.). Entrants that had not completed their submission or had sent in an already published game have received at least 5 reminders by e-mail and telephone from our team. Most of these entrants corrected their submission in time (90%).
Platform
All entries were submitted via www.imgawards.com with an interactive, password protected and user-friendly interface, allowing entrants to update their entries as many times as they wished up to the deadline date. In 2008 we continued to see a predominant number of entries from Europe (51%), although entries from the US and Asia were on the rise. An exceptional number of entries came in from Spain this year (11%). It will be a challenge for us to keep working to reach all the studios, wherever they are. 2008 was the first year with a significant number of NGage and IPhone games. There were no Android entries. We expect this trend to continue in the coming years.
category
Provenance of entries
4% 3%
10%
19,16%
16%
47,34% 14%
6% 75%
5%
51%
12,23%
25%
12%
11,70%
6% • Jave (J2ME) • Ngage • Symbian • Windows Mobile • Flash • iPhone • Brew • Doja
International mobile games awards 2009
9,57% • Best Casual Game • Real World Game • Excelence 3D • Excellence Connectivity • Excellence in Gameplay
• Europe • Asia • America • ROW
selected Press Coverage 2009 18/02/09 • WINNERS ANNOUNCEMENT http://www.pocketgamer.fr/r/Various/news.asp?c=8039 http://videogamemedia.com/articles/news/2542 http://www.nokiauser.info/2009/02/tropical-towers-named-best-casual-game-at-imga/ http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Mobile/Kodo/news.asp?c=11705 http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/Mobile/Tiki+Towers/news.asp?c=11740 http://games.on.net/screenshots/5090/Zen_Bound http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/32708/MWC-IMGA-winners-announced http://www.techshowwire.com/2009/02/19/gsma-mwc-2009-tropical-towers-named-best-casual-game-at-international-mobile-gaming-awards/ http://www.pressweb.cz/tiskova-zprava/10711-cesti-tv%C5%AFrci-nominovani-na-international-mobile-gaming-awards http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/5th-international-mobile-gaming-awards-fastfoot-challenge--mobigame--real-racing--zen-bound-andtropical-towers-among-the-winners-announced-at-the-mobile-world-congress http://cellpassion.mobi/2009/02/19/5th-international-mobile-gaming-awards-announced.aspx http://www.gamesondeck.com/news/1759/winners_announced_at_international_.php http://www.gamesondeck.com/news/1760/connect2media_to_distribute_edge_.php http://www.mcvuk.com/press-releases/44747/5th-International-Mobile-Gaming-Awards http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story-8921-IMGA-Hands-Prize-to-Eight-Titles.html http://blog.hungrymobile.com/2009/02/mwc-barcelona-2009-summary-of-event-for-everyone/ http://unlimitedringtonez.com/blog/2009/02/kodo-evolved-picks-up-imga-innovation-award/ http://www.interpreting-tech.com/bemobile/?p=136 http://www.arm.com/iqonline/news/ARMnews/24349.html http://prw.kyodonews.jp/open/nfrelease.do?r=200902100987 http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story-8920-iDracula-Tops-iPhone-App-Chart.html http://www.gamersdailynews.com/story-9004-The-Quest-3D-RPG-for-iPhone.html
OTHER IMGA PRESENCE ON THE WEB BANNER CAMPAIGNS IMGA has closed partnership agreements with 95 companies (http://www.imgawards.com/a_sponsors.php). These companies have published different IMGA web banners and run them during specific periods during the campaign: • Announcement of the 2007 winners, February 2008 • Launch of the competition, June – September 2008 • Announcement of the 25 nominees, October - February 2009 • Announcement of the 8 winners, February 2009
International mobile games awards 2009
JUDGING PROCEDURE / MARSEILLE
JUDGES OF THE MARSEILLE SESSION • Nicolas Gavet - Journalist, France • Chris James - CEO Steel Media, UK • Stuart Dredge - Journalist, UK • Justin Radeka - Technology Evangelist, ARM, USA • Jani Karlsson - Director Strategic Planning AMD, Finland
• Jim Kimura - Senior Advisor Softbank Mobile, Japan • Samuli Huuhtanen - Third Party Publishing Nokia, Finland • Mathieu Castelli - CEO C4M, France • Chairman: Maarten Noyons • Attendants: Philippe Alpe and Naved Shaikh
The Marseille judging session resulted in the selection of the 25 nominees; 5 finalists in each category: — BEST CASUAL GAME
— BEST Real World Game
Tropical Towers
Realnetworks
Finland
Ghostwire
A different game
Sweden
Bubble Boom
Zed
Spain
Fast foot challenge
Urban team
Germany
Gear Wager
IGameStudio
India
Kurai: the dark monolith Bastardogz
India
Pancake Flips
Individual
France
MoveYa
T+1 Solutions
Estonia
Treasure Arm
Tequila Mobile SA
Poland
Aikon Ghost Hunter
DiskOz Pty Ltd
— EXCELLENCE IN 3D
— EXCELLENCE IN CONNECTIVITY
Bioshock
Indiagames Ltd.
India
Gamevil’s Pro Baseball 2009
Gamevil Inc
Korea
Zen Bound
Secret Exit Ltd.
Finland
Kodo Evolved
Jadestone
Sweden
Melokey Jadestone & C4M Sweden/ France
Galaxy on Fire2
Fishlabs Ent. GmbH
Germany
Kroll
Digital Legends
Spain
Real Racing
Firemint
Australia
Combat Pillows
SleepTeam
Czech Rep.
Party Island Bowling 2in1
Digital Chocolate USA
Real Racing
Firemint
Australia
Cubic Republic
IKS Mobile
Poland
— EXCELLENCE IN GAMEPLAY Ghostwire
A different game
Sweden
Edge
Mobigame
France
Chokkan Band
Taito
Japan
LocoRoco
Airplay
UK
Dance Fabulous
Nokia
Finland
International mobile games awards 2009
4 All finalists needed to send their finished game, working on a handset, to IMGA before the end of January.
JUDGING PROCEDURE / BARCELONA
THE JUDGES OF THE BARCELONA SESSION • Samoli Huuhtanen - Producer, NOKIA • Jani Karlsson - Qualcomm • Chris James - STEEL MEDIA • Jim Kimura - Senior Advisor, Movida • Taizo Son - Senior Advisor, Softbank • Pia Vuohelainen - Partner Manager - EMEA NAVTEQ
The jury made the following unanimous decisions:
The operators made the following unanimous decision:
— BEST CASUAL GAME Tropical Towers
Realnetworks
• Jean François Royer - Business development, Euroméditerranée • Sven Hålling - VP Marketing - End2End • Neil Holroyd - Head of Games, Orange UK • Mark Smith - Head of PR, GSMA • Mathieu Castelli - CEO, C4M • Florian Stronk - Head of European Mobile Business, Konami
— OPERATORS CHOICE AWARD Finland
Edge
Mobigame
France
Germany
The result of an online voting:
— BEST Real World Game Fast foot challenge
Urban team
— EXCELLENCE IN 3D Zen Bound
Secret Exit Ltd.
— PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD Finland
Kroll
Digital Legends
Australia
Exceptional Jury Decision:
Spain
— EXCELLENCE IN CONNECTIVITY Real Racing
Firemint
— GRAND PRIX
— EXCELLENCE IN GAMEPLAY Edge
Mobigame
France
The Jury decided that all this year’s winning Category entries were of such a high standard that they all merited a Grand Prix. In addition, the exceptional innovation displayed in Kodo Evolved deserved an Innovation Award. As a result, this year the Jury has decided that the Grand Prix will be divided equally between the five Category winners and the winner of the Innovation Award.
— The SpecIal Innovation Award Kodo Evolved
International mobile games awards 2009
Jadestone
Sweden
THE AWARDS CEREMONY 2009
In 2006 and 2007 the Awards Ceremony took place in the vicinity of the 3GSM World Congress (now the Mobile World Congress). In 2006 it was in the Hotel B and in 2007 in the Hotel Fira Palace. The partnership with the GSM Association brought us right into the heart of the Mobile World Congress. The Ceremony took place in the Fira, Hall 7, Telecom TV stand, on 18 February 2009.
Approximately 274 people attended the event (see below for a list of attendees). Bnet TV enabled a live streaming service on mobile phones and interviewed jury members and winners during both the Judging Session and the Awards Ceremony. All interviews can be viewed at www.bnettv.com now.
THE AWARDS CEREMONY 2009 / PICTURES — BEST CASUAL GAME
Jean-François Royer, Realnetworks
International mobile games awards 2009
Realnetworks, Jean-François Royer, Chris James
| 1/3
THE AWARDS CEREMONY 2009 / PICTURES
— Best Real World Game
Marc Naddell, Tom Nicolai(winner), Chris James
Marc Naddell, Tom Nicolai(winner), Maarten Noyons
— Excellence in 3D
Borgar Ljosland, Chris James
— Excellence in Game Play
Dan Keegan (Orange) with David Papazian and Matthieu Malot of Mobigame
International mobile games awards 2009
Borgar Ljosland, Secret Exit, Maarten Noyons
| 2/3
THE AWARDS CEREMONY 2009 / PICTURES
| 3/3
— People’s Choice Award
Unai Landa Bonilla (Digital legends), Chris James
— Operators’ Choice Award
Matthieu Malot and David Papazian of Mobigame
Dan Keegan (Orange), Matthieu Malot and David Papazian of Mobigame, Maarten Noyons
— Excellence in Connectivity
Jim Kimura, Tony King-Smith of Imagination technologies, representing Firemint, Chris James
International mobile games awards 2009
Maarten Noyons, Tony King-Smith, Jim Kimura
ONLINE TRAFFIC 2008/2009 Audience report document edited by XiTi on the 20/04/2009
Audience report Analysis perimeter: Analysis perimeter: - WebSite : IMGA General dashboard - WebSite : IMGA - Period : 9/1/2008 to 4/1/2009 Dashboards > General dashboard - Period : 9/1/2008 to 4/1/2009 Overall view of main analysis : the gauges, curves, charts and graphs quickly - Comparison period : 1/28/2008 to 8/27/2008 - Comparison period : 1/28/2008 to 8/27/2008 describe the site
Traffic
P
P-1
P-2
Page views
120,551
+37.6%
-39.3%
Visits
30,317
+14.6%
-50.9%
Total visitors
26,432
+9.7%
-53.5%
Visits (30,317)
Interest criteria P/V Entering visits rate P/entering V
46.4%
Entering visits (14,066)
53.6%
Bounce Rate (16,251)
P
P-1
Traffic and interest criteria
P-2
4.0
+21.2%
+25.0%
46.4%
+2.6pts
+12.0pts
7.4
+17.5%
(=)
Average duration / V
00:07:29
+21.6%
-0.6%
Average duration / P
00:01:01
+2.9%
-0.3%
Site summary
Server hours
Sources
World
International mobile games awards 2009
SPONSORS | CO SPONSORS Main sponsor
co sponsor
many thanks to
PARTNERS 26 MEDIA PARTNERS 9 in the UK
3 in the US
3 in France
1 in Italy
1 in Spain
3 in China
International mobile games awards 2009
1 in Russia
1 in India
PARTNERS 2 RESEARCH PARTNER IN UK
5 TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS
49 PROMOTIONAL PARTNERS 19 in ASIA
25 in EUROPE
7 in AMERICA
2 in RUSSIA
International mobile games awards 2009
2 in OCEANIA
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International mobile games awards 2009
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Winners Announced at International Mobile Gaming Awards 2009 [02.25.09] Eight mobile titles have been selected as winners at the 5th International Mobile Gaming Awards at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. This year's winning titles span multiple countries and developers, and include several entries developed for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch platforms. Real Arcade's iPhone app Tropical Towers (also known as Tiki Towers in North America) earned this year's Best Casual Game award. Firemint's Real Racing won the Excellence in Creativity award, as the multiplayer GPS -based title Fast Foot Challenge from Urban Team in Germany took the prize for Best Real World Game.
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The People's Choice Award, chosen via an online popular vote, went to the Spainbased Digital Legends for its side -scrolling iPhone brawler Kroll. The ceremony's Special Innovation Award was given to Jadestone's single -switch multiplayer puzzle game Kodo Evolved. The Excellence in 3D award went to Secret Exit's Zen Bound, an upcoming iPhone puzzle title. Finally, Mobigame from France went home with two prizes this year, earning both the IMGA's Excellence in Gameplay award and the mobile operator panel -chosen Operator's Choice award for its iPhone action-puzzler Edge. Launched in 2004, the International Mobile Gaming Awards offer recognition and talent scouting services for high-quality mobile games. The IMGA has awarded over $140,000 in cash prizes since its inception, and has reviewed over 1,000 games from more than 50 countries since 2004.
By Danny Cowan 2009-02-25 14:05:00
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International mobile games awards 2009
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5th International Mobile Gaming Awards Announced Posted by Nimish Dubey at 2/19/2009 1:51 PM Categories: Mobile World Congress 2009 ,Games The winners of the 5th Annual International Mobile Gaming Awards(IMGA) have been announced. Held during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the IMGA is an annual contest for the best mobile games in the world. As usual, the winners of the awards across eight categories were a blend of the unusual, the eccentric and, of course, the utterly innovative.
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FastFoot-Challenge of Urban Team from Germany was named Best Real World Game, Mobigame from France received the Excellence in Gameplay Award with EDGE, Real Racer of Firemint from Australia won the Excellence in Connectivity Award, while Secret Exit from Finland walked away with the Excellence in 3D Award for their title Zen Bound. Tropical Towers of Real Arcade from Finland was awarded Best Casual Game.
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The People ’s Choice Award, chosen via on-line voting on www.imgawards.com went to Digital Legends from Spain with the title KROLL. Rounding off the awards, a panel of Mobile Operators,representing Orange, Vodafone and T-Mobile, selected EDGE of Mobigame from France who therefore received the Operators ’ Choice Award.
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The Jury decided that all this year's winning Category entries were of such a high standard that they all merited a Grand Prix. In addition, the exceptional innovation displayed in Kodo Evolved deserved an Innovation Award. As a result, this year the Jury has decided that the Grand Prix will be divided equally between the five Category winners and the winner of the Innovation Award.
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Yes, yes, we are already trying to get our mitts on those games. Watch this site, please.
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