The Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards: 2025 finalists and previous winners
It’s nearly time for the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards 2025! Join us on Tuesday, August 19th for the live gala ceremony during Gamescom week and connect with the biggest names in the industry whilst we honour the past year's standout games, studios, services and all-round talent.
This year, 23 categories celebrate the best in the business, from advertising and analytics to developers and publishers. With a change in location from central London’s BAFTA to Cologne last year, let’s take a quick look at some of the previous winners and this year’s finalists.
Game of the Year
Scopely had a great 2024, picking up two of the most prestigious awards in the industry. As well as winning Best Publisher for the second year running, they also took home Game of the Year for Monopoly GO! following its $3 billion+ success that year.
Winning Game of the Year is a big deal, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Marvel Snap (2023), Subway Surfers Tag (2023), Beatstar by Space Ape Games (2022) and miHoYo’s Genshin Impact (2021). The first winner in 2018 was Playdemic’s Golf Clash.
“Who could win Game of the Year in 2025?”
Who could win Game of the Year in 2025? Will it be an IP title such as Avatar Legends: Realms Collide, DC: Dark Legion, Disney Solitaire or Pokemon Trading Card Game Pocket? Perhaps something from an established series of games like Candy Crush Solitaire or Monument Valley 3? Or even a fresh new face in the form of Balatro?
Publishers and developers
Can Scopely score a hat-trick and make it three in a row this year for Best Publisher? They face some pretty stiff competition from other finalists such as Jam City, Miniclip, NetEase Games and Zynga. Previous winning publishers include Kwalee (2022), Tencent (2021) and Voodoo (2019).
The Best Developer award was given to Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail developer HoYoverse in 2024. This year’s finalists include King, Pearl Abyss, Supercell and 2023’s winners, Tripledot Studios. Space Ape Games picked up the honours in 2022, preceded by TiMi Studio Group in 2021 and 2020.
“A dozen finalists are still in the running for this year’s award.”
Last year’s Best Indie Developer went to The Battle of Polytopia studio Midjiwan. The award has previously gone to Rusty Lake (2023), inkle (2022) and Kukouri Mobile Entertainment (2019) among others. A dozen finalists are still in the running for this year’s award, including AbhiTechGames, Coleplay and kamibox, as well as Game of the Year contender LocalThunk (Balatro).
People's Choice Award
The most hotly contested category is the People's Choice Award, due to its unique and distinct honour of being voted for by PocketGamer.com readers. It recognises the best new game to have received a full release during the previous year.
In 2024, it went to Whaleapp and Tilting Point's SpongeBob Adventures: In a Jam, while Disney Mirrorverse picked up the honours the year before. Previous winners include Devsisters’ Cookie Run: Kingdom (2022), SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off by Tilting Point (2021) and Sky: Children of the Light by thatgamecompany (2020).
“The public voting for this year’s honours has been as hectic as ever.”
The public voting for this year’s honours has been as hectic as ever, with Pocket Gamer readers rallying to support their favourites. As well as household names like Fortnite, Lara Croft: Guardian of Light and Marvel Mystic Mayhem, the 2025 finalists also feature newcomers such as Bloons Card Storm, Squid Game: Unleashed and What the Clash?
The entire ecosystem
“The Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards span every sector of the industry.”
The Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards span every sector of the industry. To reflect new technology, we introduced a dedicated category for artificial intelligence in 2023, which was won by Solsten. Kinetix took top honours in 2024 and the category returns this year as the award for Best Use Of AI. Bitmagic, Elevatix, Ludo, TapNation and more are all up for this one.
Blockchain also gets a revised category for 2025, with finalists including Animoca Brands (inc The Sandbox), FIFA Rivals and Immortal Rising 2.
While the other categories are arguably less glamorous than the games themselves, they’re all essential to this great games industry of which we all love being a part. Sectors that get some well deserved attention include Advertising, Analytics, App Stores, Localisation, Outsourcing, Payment Services, Tool Providers and more.
You can see all the categories here.
Individual contributions
As well as celebrating the best games and businesses, the awards recognise outstanding individual performance in two important categories.
Looking to the future, the Rising Star award recognises a person from any corner of the globe who has demonstrated a considerable amount of success, influence and impact despite their relatively recent arrival within the mobile games industry.
“As well as celebrating the best games and businesses, the awards recognise outstanding individual performance.”
Last year’s winner was King’s senior engagement manager Aïda Figuerola, with 2023’s award going to Philippa Layburn, UA lead at Trailmix Games. Previous winners include Anima Interactive creative director Karla Reyes (2022), while Recontact Games co-founder Simay Dinç was the first winner when we introduced the category in 2020.
At the other end of the career timeline, the Mobile Legend award recognises a person from any mobile gaming territory who has achieved a considerable amount of success in their career and has acted as a pioneer in, and made an outstanding contribution to, the mobile games space.
The first award was given to Kristian Segerstrale in 2018, with Tommy Palm following up the year after. More recently, we’ve made Mobile Legends of Nour Khrais in 2023 and Nitish Mittersain last year.
Meet the best in the business
Every year, the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards gives our industry the chance to get together, reflect on the past year and celebrate the wins that keep mobile at the forefront of the wider games industry.
“You will be treated to an unmissable evening in the company of many of the industry’s very best and brightest.”
The sit down dinner and live gala ceremony is one of the biggest nights on the mobile games calendar - and tickets are selling fast! We can’t promise that all the finalists will be there on the night, but rest assured that you will be treated to an unmissable evening in the company of many of the industry’s very best and brightest.
We invite you to join us at Gürzenich Köln, Cologne on Tuesday, August 19th 2025 for this thrilling evening of recognition, networking and celebration.
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