Nokia announced earlier this week the top 10 developers of its Mobile Games Innovation Challenge. The winners, to be made public at an exclusive awards ceremony later this month, will take home a total prize value of EUR 70,000, whereas 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 one EUR 20,000, and the third one 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 game concepts. Entries were judged based 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.

The 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 that 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, 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 would 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.