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Monument Valley takes the top honors at mobile game awards

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Click here for all of GameBeat’s 2015 Game Developers Conference coverage.

Disclosure: The organizers of IMGA paid my way to Marseille for judging. Our coverage remains objective.

The votes have been tallied, and the winner of the Grand Prix prize for the best mobile game went to Monument Valley, touchscreen puzzle maze game created by digital game studio Ustwo.

The game beat out 92 finalists and a total of 1,000 entries in the 11th annual International Mobile Gaming Awards. The award was given out at an event last night during the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

“It was another amazing year for mobile gaming,” said Maarten Noyons, head of the IMGA, at the award event on Tuesday evening. “I don’t think there’s another industry with as much innovation, energy, and inspiration as the one we are working in now.”

Maarten Noyons, head of the IMGA.
Maarten Noyons, head of the IMGA.

I was part of a 48-hour judging session in Marseille, France and helped select the finalists among the nominees in a variety of categories. In doing so, I worked alongside game creators ranging from Tommy Palm, the former “games guru” at King and one of the creators for the mobile version of Candy Crush Saga, to Brianna Wu, the head of development for startup studio Giant Spacekat. I presented the award to Blizzard Entertainment for best gameplay.

We reduced the entrants by looking at YouTube gameplay trailers and playing a lot of games. We trimmed down the categories mercilessly and then argued about who belonged in the final list. One of the controversies: Should Threes! stand alone as a nominee, or should the copycat 2048 be nominated as well? We decided to allow both games and let the final judging and public voting take its course.

Allison Haislip, actress and host of the IMGA awards.
Allison Haislip, actress and host of the IMGA awards.

Last year’s winners included Badland and The Walking Dead.

The other 2014 winners are:

Excellence in Innovation — Bounden

Best Quickplay Game — Crossy Road

Guilty Pleasure — 2048

Best Meaningful Play — Papers, Please

Excellence in Storytelling — 80 Days

Excellence in Gameplay — Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Best Technical Achievement — Vainglory

Excellence in Audio Visual Art & Design — Tengami

Best Multiplayer Game — Soccer Physics

Best Upcoming Game — Prune

Honorable Mention — Threes!

People’s Choice — Vainglory

Vainglory
Defeat the Kraken in Vainglory and you can sic him on your enemies. Mwahahaha.
Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.