As 2019 begins to fade into memory, we're taking a look back at the events that have dominated the last 12 months in mobile gaming.

As such, we've asked the industry's great and good to give us their take on the year, as well as predicting the trends that will dominate in 2020.

• Alexis Bonte is COO of Stillfront Group

PocketGamer.biz: What do you think was the biggest news of 2019?

Alexis Bonte: The growing importance of larger games that are on top of the grossing charts.

The arrival of big game franchises - such as Call of Duty: Mobile as a free-to play-game - clearly confirms that free-to-play is “the business model of choice” on mobile. The players have spoken and they prefer free-to-play on mobile.

What's the thing you're most proud of during 2019?

Our family of semi-autonomous studios is growing not just organically with the strong performances across our portfolio but also with new members. This year Kixeye joined the Stillfront group.

As we grow and become one of the larger players in the industry, more and more studios and investors are seeing the strength of our decentralized model and how it puts us in a unique position to build a leading free to play powerhouse.

Which mobile games have you most played/enjoyed during 2019?

I am still a huge fan of Civilization - having played it since the first one.

I still enjoy one more turn on my tablet now with Civilization VI as well as playing eRepublik Labs’ main game War and Peace.

In terms of new games, I find Tennis Clash a lot of fun and very well designed. I also play a lot of the games from the companies that could potentially join the Stillfront family, but of course, I can’t name these.

What do you think will be the biggest trends in 2020?

I believe the consolidation of the industry will continue. The number of new games coming out on mobile is actually decreasing as the industry is maturing, small players are disappearing and big players are becoming larger and larger.

At Stillfront we want to be one of the main positive actors of this consolidation by focusing on medium size studios that are excellent at making and running evergreen games and can benefit from joining a family of equally strong studios that help each other grow.

If you had one New Year's Resolution for the mobile game industry, what would it be?

That the platforms improve discoverability.

On top of this, it would be great to see the power of featuring for medium and smaller studios and innovative games so that the industry can become less dependent on user acquisition budgets.

With this, we will hopefully see a bit more movement in the top grossing charts from more newcomers.

You can check out all our 2019 in Review articles here.