News

Over 200 games entered, but who will win Spil's Unsung Heroes competition?

Voting on Pocket Gamer will aid decision

Over 200 games entered, but who will win Spil's Unsung Heroes competition?

A public vote on Pocket Gamer will help decide the winner of Spil Games' Unsung Heroes competition, the company has announced.

More than 200 mobile games have been entered so far, with their developers hoping to win a publishing contract with Spil Games equivalent to $50,000

The competition closes for entries on 23 June 2015.

"We're excited to involve game players in this process, thanks to Pocket Gamer," says Tung Nguyen-Khac, CEO of Spil Games.

"We've had an unprecedented response with so many entries. We've started to review the games and some of them are amazing. Now it's time to find out how players react, to help us judge which games are worth taking further."

Better chance

The idea behind the Unsung Heroes competition is to give great games a better chance to reach the audiences they deserve.

Too many are falling into the black hole of the app stores and the competition is a way to get players to try them out. Everyone who enters is a winner because all the games are receiving more attention.

Mobile gamers can grab a first look at the competition entries on the Spil Games Unsung Heroes Facebook page, where developers have been showing off their games.

Everyone is encouraged to follow the links to play the games and to leave positive comments about the ones they like.

"There's a real developer community emerging on our Facebook page," says Nguyen-Khac.

"Everyone wants to see the best games get the exposure they deserve."

Judging process

The judges from Spil Games will be taking user reaction on this page into account when they produce a shortlist of semi-finalists early in July.

Semi finalists will be placed into categories and take part in a vote by the game-playing public through Pocket Gamer.

Those semi finalists will be placed into categories and take part in a vote by the game-playing public through Pocket Gamer.

The final winner will be decided by judges from Spil Games who will take the public vote firmly into account.

For the best game, Spil Games will award a publishing contract equivalent to $50,000 in marketing and support.

This game will be marketed to Spil Games' more than 100 million unique monthly users, in social media and the app stores and cross-promoted with other Spil Games' products in the app stores.

Marketing smarts

The publisher will help with writing and optimizing app store descriptions, monetizing to improve revenue generation and localizing to ensure a global reach. The game will also attract all the publicity that goes with being a competition winner.

"We know there are many developers out there who know how to make great games," says Nguyen-Khac.

"Through Unsung Heroes, we can help to get them the audiences they deserve."


PocketGamer.biz regularly posts content from a variety of guest writers across the games industry. These encompass a wide range of topics and people from different backgrounds and diversities, sharing their opinion on the hottest trending topics, undiscovered gems and what the future of the business holds.