News

Advergames dominate Webby Awards mobile game category

Nike, Dr Pepper and DHL in contention for prize

Advergames dominate Webby Awards mobile game category
Another day, another perplexing mobile games award shortlist. The prestigious Webby Awards have a dedicated mobile section, including a category for mobile gaming.

The link is here, although you need to register first to gain access. Anyway, five games/sites are up for the award, which is pretty US-centric.

They include Cellufun's WAP site and the Nickelodeon Mobile portal, but also three branded mobile games: a Tetris clone produced for DHL, a football game for Nike, and a bottle-cap matching iPhone puzzler for Dr Pepper.

It's not exactly inspiring, however good those games are (and lord knows, there are enough Tetris clones and match-three puzzlers out there already that aren't promoting a brand).

Maybe I'm being too harsh on advergaming, but it's a strange mix of nominees that doesn't exactly reflect innovation in the mobile games industry (Cellufun aside).
Contributing Editor

Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)