The Judging

All eligible entries will be reviewed in two rounds of judging, by a panel of industry experts. The first round of judging will reveal the nominees and the winners will be announced in the final judging

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 Jury's Honorable Mention 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 10 nominees, roughly 60 games out of 800.

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. 12 Jury members will gather in a hotel to play the 60 nominated games.