The 4TH IMGA took place in 2007.
Here are all the games awarded that year.
This edition looks as if it was dedicated to the N-Gage and Symbian platforms. It also was a moment where a few powerful Nokia phones were showing a blink of the future of mobile gaming.
At that time developers were slowly but surely stepping aside from J2ME (Java 2 Platform Micro Edition) which was designed for small devices with a limited processor power and small memory size. Therefore, mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), consumer electronics and embedded devices are common examples of J2ME capable devices.
The big gap between PC and mobile games was shrinking. Technically great things were achieved but businesswise, it was still quite difficult for (small) game developers to truly embrace their destiny and make a living of their creations.
After awarding two very innovative games who never were released, the jury wanted to award something more “commercially viable”. Thus the decision for Metal Gear Solid (also known as MGS) was a very smart decision, because it took three aspects of the consideration:
– First time a very large console license was brought to a mobile phone
– Never before was invested so much money in the development of a mobile game
– Visual quality, hardware acceleration and gameplay were astonishing
This game was a milestone and the IMGA were the first to acknowledge the growth of high quality mobile games.
Another game we awarded that year was Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, a great point-and-click adventure game combining simple mini-games and harder puzzles. Developed by Jadestone on the (former) new N-Gage 2.0 platform, it provided new adventures or “episodes” through download – much like the new Sam & Max episodic adventure games for Windows and the Wii.