Hidden Brains recently witnessed the 9th Annual International Mobile Gaming Awards ceremony held at San Francisco. The event was attended by numerous mobile game executives, developers and journalists. The ballroom of the Fairmont hotel was the venue of award ceremony.
A Milestone Event in the Gaming Industry
Launched in 2004, the IMGA is considered as the Oscar of the mobile gaming world. It attracts various mobile gaming giants from across Europe, Asia, North America and South America. The last eight years, this award show used to be a peripheral event during Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. However, this year the show moved to San Francisco. The event was hosted by Australian radio and television personality Maude Garrett.
All the awards are judged in two rounds, by a jury of twelve members. In the first round ten finalists are shortlisted for each category and ultimately one winner for each category is selected. Moreover, there are other awards like Honorable Mention, People’s Choice (selected by public voting) and Grand Prix (best overall game). Over 55 games were nominated for the awards in 6 categories. All of them were presented in a superb manner through short video snippets.
The Walking Dead: The Game, was selected as the biggest winner with two awards including ‘Excellence in Storytelling’ and the overall ‘Grand Prix’. Other winners included The Room for ‘Excellence in Visuals’, Fairway Solitaire for ‘Excellence in Gameplay’, Spaceteam for ‘Excellence in Innovation’ Candy Crush Saga for ‘Best Social Game’ and DragonBox+ for ‘Best Serious Game ‘. Best Serious Game was a new category included in the award show. It included educational games and games based on a social issue. The ‘People’s Choice’ award was given to The Room. There was a tie between Devil’s Attorney and Zombies, Run! for the ‘Jury’s Honorable Mention’ category.
Before and after the award ceremony, a fantastic performance by Sirqus Alfons, a musical theater group kept the viewers engaged. Hidden Brains felt very fortunate to have attended such a huge ceremony. Our developers got the opportunity to meet many experts of the gaming world. They got many ideas and inspirations to work better in future to get success in the era of mobile games.
