The Mobile Games Awards are taking place just a week from today in Central London, but there’s still time to join us!
There’s limited time left to secure your ticket to join us at this prestigious ceremony. Secure your seat at this night of celebration and get ready to connect with the best in the games industry as we congregate to celebrate the industry’s successes over the past year! Book your ticket while you still can, availability is highly limited so don’t leave it until the last minute to register!
This is an event you absolutely won’t want to miss! This year’s Pocket Gamer MGAs are a very special edition of these prestigious awards. For the first time, the Mobile Games Awards Winners are decided by the industry. That’s right, it’s all up to professionals working in the mobile games industry now and votes are being counted as we speak! We have 22 categories each with a selection of worthy finalists who have been voted for by industry professionals over the past few weeks, and there’s been an open vote for people outside the industry to voice their thoughts with The Pocket Gamer People’s Choice Award. We’re thrilled to have seen an unprecedented response from the public for The Pocket Gamer People’s Choice Award, and we absolutely can’t wait to see who the public crowns the winner amongst the fantastic finalists that are up for this award.
Speaking of special awards, today we’re giving you a bit of insight into the MGAs’ special lifetime achievement award. One winner is crowned as the MGA Mobile Legend each year, and today, we’re diving into what this very special award means and the winners from years past in anticipation of who will secure the title this year. Keep on reading to learn more about the incredible industry veterans that have earned this title.
What is the Mobile Legend award?
This special lifetime achievement award recognised a person from anywhere in the world who has achieved a considerable amount of success in their career and has acted as a pioneer in the mobile games space.
The Mobile Legend is a special award to recognise an outstanding contribution to the mobile games industry selected directly by the organisation committee of the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards.
Since our inaugural Mobile Games Awards, we have had five winners claim the title of Mobile Legends, each and every one of them a renowned games industry pioneer within their own right. These individuals’ careers and notable achievements excel far beyond what we can cover in this article, but we’ve provided a brief snippet of their spectacular work that led them to their award. We cannot wait to see what game industry dynamo wins this prestigious award this year!
2018 – Kristian Segerstrale (CEO of Super Evil Mega Corp)
Kristian Segerstrale was the first ever recipient of this prestigious award. A true industry pioneer, he’s been involved in many, many successful games for over a decade and proved himself over and over as a great predictor and investor in the next big projects for the games industry. His work began back in 2011 through co-founding java game developer Macrospace, and he launched over 20 games under that company.
He co-founded Playfish in 2007 to make the most of the massive changes brought on by free-to-play and social networks and oversaw the likes of The Sims Social, Restaurant City and Pet Society before selling the studio to EA for $400 million in 2009. He currently works as CEO of esports specialist Super Evil Megacorp.
2019 – Tommy Palm (Founder and CEO of Resolution Games)
Tommy Palm won this prestigious accolade back in 2019, after twenty years of being heavily involved in the mobile games space. He worked as a vice president of mobile from 1999 to 2009 and founded Fabrication Games in 2009. They were eventually bought by King in 2012 in a deal worth millions.
Palm is credited with playing a key role in King’s mobile push as they launched Candy Crush Saga back in 2012, one of the most popular mobile games in the world to this day, on iOS and Android and was dubbed the ‘Games Guru’ during his time at King. He founded Resolution Games back in 2015 and has been serving as CEO ever since at the augmented reality-focused company, overseeing projects including Bait! and Angry Birds: First Person Slingshot. He’s also dedicated to giving back to the industry through his non-profit Stugan, an all expenses paid games accelerator for developers to make progress on their games and receive mentorship from industry experts.
2020 – Bernard Kim (President of Publishing, Zynga)
Bernard Kim of Zynga was presented with this award in 2020, a celebration of one of the very first pioneers of the mobile space. He began his career in Disney Mobile and eventually moved to EA Mobile with the purpose of bringing games to devices that were not, at the time, “meant for gaming” in his own words. He worked at EA for a decade and rose to the position of Senior Vice President, helping the company from early successes on JAVA downloads through the transition to smartphones into the massive billion-dollar empire the business is today. He worked on gaming franchises including Tentris, The Simpsons: Tapped Out, Plants vs. Zombies, Star Wars, Minions and many, many more.
Back in 2016, he joined Zynga as president and helped pave the way for the company’s growth into one of the fastest growing public gaming companies in the world. Their market cap had practically tripled in 2020 from the time he joined under his leadership, and he’s an exemplary industry leader who maintains his passion for gaming at the forefront of his leadership. In his own words, “My one superpower is I have the ability to play three hours of video games every single day, and I’ve done that for 30-plus years.”
2021 – Chris DeWolfe (Co-founder of Plai Labs)
Co-founder and former CEO of Jam City Chris DeWolfe joined the exclusive club of Mobile Legends back in 2021. His story begins with his work in MySpace during the rise of the internet, with DeWolfe helping establish MySpace as one of the first and biggest social media platforms of our time. Following its sale to News Corp in 2005, he founded Jam City in 2010 with some colleagues.
As we now know, Jam City exploded into one of the biggest names in the industry to this day, leading nine studios that have brought us massive titles such as Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery, Cookie Jam, Panda Pop, Disney Emoji Blitz and Family Guy The Quest for Stuff, which have achieved well over 1.3 billion downloads. DeWolfe’s impact reaches far beyond the games industry, being named one of Time 100’s most influential people in the world and handpicked by legend Barbara Walters as one of the 10 most fascinating people.
2022 – Daniel Gray (Chief Creative Officer, ustwo games)
Our most recent MGA Mobile Legend is none other than ustwo games’ Chief Creative Officer Daniel Gray. He has been with the awards-winning studio since 2013, but has spent over fifteen years in his career creating, in his own words, “meaningful games at scale” and forming ustwo games’ remarkable, industry-leading creative vision.
His career began at Lionhead Studios’ QA work experience programme right after graduating university and moved into work between Lionhead, Kuju Studio and Hello Games over the next few years. He made the switch over the mobile games at a time where mobile gaming was still highly underestimated, being drawn in by ustwo games’ unusual background as a design agency looking to branch out into the mobile gaming sphere. Within a few months of Gray joining the company in 2013, ustwo achieved their greatest hit, Monument Valley, and Gray got to be right there to see the prototyping process occur. He eventually moved into a Head of Studio position and shifted into director duties by 2020. After a little while running the company, Gray shifted gears to focus on what he most prioritised spending his time on, and now works at leading the creative vision for the company as Chief Creative Officer. You can read our interview from last year with the legend himself for more insight here.
Celebrating the future of the games industry with the Rising Star award!
While the Mobile Legend award celebrates the most highly achieved trailblazers who have already left a lasting mark in the games industry, we equally want to uplift the rising stars who have already begun to leave a positive impact on the games industry. Our Rising Star award was a new addition to the awards back in 2020 and 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.
Previous winners have included Simay Dinç, the Co-Founder of Recontact Games, Jana and Sham Al Bdour of Sakura Games and most recently, Niantic’s Growth Product Manager Karla Reyes. We cannot wait to see what spectacular industry newcomer takes this award this year!
Be among the biggest names in the games industry next week at the Pocket Gamer Mobile Games Awards!
There is no place to be like the Mobile Games Awards when it comes to connecting with the best of the present and the future of the games industry. Big names from all corners of the games industry will be joining us in Central London next week for this big night for the games industry, and you won’t want to miss this phenomenal opportunity to mingle with top authorities and leading brands in the industry. The show’s coming up in just a week, so this is your last chance to secure your ticket and join us and the industry’s finest at this prestigious evening! There’s a very limited number of tickets left, so head over to our official site and secure your spot at the show while you still can.