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Nokia today announced the top 10 developers of its Mobile Games Innovation Challenge. The winners, to be announced at an exclusive awards ceremony later this month, will take home a total prize value of EUR 70,000. The three most innovative game concepts will be offered Nokia Publishing pre-production contracts. In addition, the first winner will be awarded EUR 40,000, the second EUR 20,000, and the third EUR 10,000 to enable further development of the chosen concept.

An independent panel of industry experts from across the globe has spent the past few weeks deliberating through over a hundred entries to come up with a shortlist of the most innovative mobile games concepts. Entries were judged on game innovation, fun, feasibility of execution, and market potential. The top three developers who best meet these requirements will be invited to present their concepts at the upcoming Nokia Games Summit in Rome, Italy on October 29, 2008.

Top 10 developers and their concepts are:
- Active Tecnologia e Consultoria Ltda. (Brazil) - Cinemarena - set in a movie theatre, controlling avatars on the big screen
- CreatePlayShare (India) - Ball - play any ball game on your mobile device or even create your own new game
- A Different Game (Sweden) - Ghost Wire - use your mobile device to communicate with ghosts
- Eclipse Interactive (UK) - Watchers - conspiracy adventure game that uses Nokia Maps and other real world tools to find locations
- Int13 (France) - Kweekies - augmented reality virtual pet game that allows players to interact with their pet by utilizing the embedded camera of their mobile device
- Jadestone (Sweden) and C4M (France) - Melokey - a music game for mobile devices where you learn to master songs and play them against other in-game characters to win the hearts of your fans
- LemonQuest (Spain) - Wave Pirates - a fun action game where players turn into a pirate navigating the seven seas, looking for gold and glory
- Onur Yazilim (Turkey) - Comet Hunter - a 2-D shooting game which combines the excitement of shooting with natural sound effects made by players themselves
- Simlife (China) - XDancery - a music game where players can touch the screen, draw patterns on the screen, shake the device or sing into it to hit the music tempo notes
- TechnoBubble (Spain) - Fun Cam - a mixed reality game that connects your camera on your mobile device to the TV

“The Mobile Games Innovation Challenge has demonstrated the huge potential of this industry on a global level, and the innovation that can be applied to mobile games,” said Dr Mark Ollila, director of games publishing, Nokia. “We’ve seen some groundbreaking ideas and some really unique concepts. It just goes to show how many creative minds there are out there and it really looks like we’re going to set out what we wanted to achieve with this Challenge - to rock the industry. Everyone’s now talking about the awards ceremony and we’re looking forward to an exciting outcome.”

The Mobile Games Innovation Challenge, launched in April 2008, is designed to encourage the development of innovative game concepts with the power to positively disrupt the global mobile gaming industry and to help propel mobile gaming with handheld devices into a new and exciting future.

The Mobile Games Innovation Challenge, sponsored by Nokia Games Publishing, called for mobile game developers to submit concepts that will help drive mobile gaming to the next level, relying on the advanced features and functionalities of N-Gage-compatible devices, and Java- or Symbian-based Series 40 or S60 devices from Nokia.

If you have a N-Gage enabled Nokia device and you’re tired of seeing all the games for the iPhone coming out hopefully the contest winners will have some innovative games.

Last week glu mobile announced the development of their newest mobile video game, Transformers. It’s no suprise that a Transformers mobile game would be hitting the market. After the huge success of the movie and of course the original series it was only a matter of time. According to the press release the game is due out sometime this Fall.  I’m really looking forward to this game. Now that cell phone are starting to catch up to video game technology we’re going to see more and more quality games for our cell phones. Here’s part of the press release:

“Glu Mobile Inc. (Nasdaq: GLUU), a leading global publisher of mobile games, today announced that it is currently developing a new TRANSFORMERS mobile game, TRANSFORMERS G1: AWAKENING, scheduled to launch worldwide this Fall. TRANSFORMERS G1: AWAKENING will take players back to the TRANSFORMERS’ roots and include characters, storyline and classic visuals from the original GENERATION 1 series – the hugely popular original cartoon that spawned a pop culture phenomenon.

“TRANSFORMERS has a vast consumer base worldwide, and we saw great enthusiasm and reception with the launch of our TRANSFORMERS game last year,” said Jill Braff, senior vice president of global publishing, Glu. “With TRANSFORMERS G1: AWAKENING, we’ve incorporated classic elements true to the original franchise while creating an innovative and enthralling mobile strategy game that will appeal to TRANSFORMERS fans new and old.”