The Judging
All eligible entries will be reviewed in two rounds of judging, by a panel of industry experts. The competition selects a winner for each of the 6 categories and three Special Prize winners: the Grand Prix, the Operators’ Choice Award and the People’s Choice Award.
Choice of the judges
We are always on the lookout for people with an exceptional knowledge of mobile games. We also receive many requests from individuals to become an IMGA judge.
Each year the management of the IMGA selects a new panel of judges. Our criteria are: an exceptional knowledge of mobile games, a good insight into how games are made and awareness on what is currently available on the market. We have a huge lack of female judges, so ladies: send us a request to become an IMGA judge!
The majority of our judging panel consists of game journalists. In general, we have at least two game developers in our panel. The game developer judges usually have no games in the competition and if they have, they cannot vote for their own games. We invite our main sponsors’ specialists on mobile games to be judges - the usual size of the jury is 10 to 12 people.
The judging process
The IMGA winners are selected in a two-round judging process, with the exception of the People’s Choice Award and the Operators’ Choice Award as described below.
First Round of Judging
After the deadline for entries the jury gathers in Marseille, France to review all the entries. Due to the large number of entries, very little time is available for each individual game. This means that your material has to be good, descriptions short and to-the-point, and a great video is key. And videos are mandatory!
The job for the jury in this first round is to select 5 nominees in 6 categories, roughly 30 games out of 300.
The type of criteria of the IMGA judges can be summarized as follows:
- Fun and addictiveness
- Simplicity, efficiency in design
- Originality, authenticity
- Innovation
- Specific features varying per games category
Second Round of Judging
The second round of judging is held just before the Awards Ceremony in Barcelona. 12 Jury members will gather in a hotel in Barcelona to play the 30 nominated games. All nominees are invited to come to Barcelona and present their game, but it is not mandatory to come to Barcelona. If a nominee can attend the judging session we will give them a 10 minutes time slot in front of the jury. For Real World Games, the time slot may be a bit longer, given the fact that the jury needs to go out and play a game outdoors in most cases.
In the second round of judging, the jury selects the winner in each category and the overall winner, who receives the IMGA Grand Prix