Digital Chocolate tops PocketGamer.biz Quality Index for Q2 2009

Digital Chocolate was the top mobile games publisher in the second quarter of this year, according to our latest Quality Index chart.

The chart focuses purely on Java games, aggregating review scores from key consumer-focused mobile games websites. The separate iPhone chart was published here last week.

In 24 reviews, DChoc scored an average of 8 out of 10 for its games, with California Gold Rush (8.60) and Diamond Islands 2 (8.38) particular hits with the critics. The full publisher chart runs thus:



I-play, which topped the iPhone chart, is also doing well in the J2ME space, taking second spot. The table also makes good reading for mid-tier publishers like Connect2Media, HandyGames and RealArcade.

However, it'll be less so for the big guns: EA Mobile, Glu Mobile and particularly Gameloft, which props up the chart for Q2 2009.

Some clarification may be required here. 7.04 is still a decent average, even if it is 0.95 points down on Gameloft's score this time last year. However, the publisher had four games with a sub-7 average this time round, dragging its average down.

The chart of games is actually topped by a title that's as indie as they come: Gish Mobile. Developed by Hardwire and published by GlobalFun, it scored a mightily impressive 8.90 average.

The full games chart - which only covers games reviewed by three or more of the tracked sites during the quarter - runs thus:


METHODOLOGY

Sites included in our research for this index were: Pocket Gamer, Pocket Gamer France, AirGamer, Mobile Game FAQs, Jmobil, JeuxPo and ProjectNext.

For those sites who do not give marks out of 10, they were adjusted (so we doubled the score for sites that mark out of 5, and divided it by 10 for those sites that mark out of 100).