Nokia announced a brand new global competition for game developers, which comes with prizes of $70,000 in cash. Named Mobile Games Innovation Challenge, the contest's main purpose is to stimulate the creation of game concepts that are innovative enough to have a huge positive impact on the mobile gaming industry, allowing both mobile games and mobile devices to step together into a new gaming era.

The Mobile Games Innovation Challenge is open to developers of all levels and backgrounds, as long as they're not "individual persons". Participants can submit more than one concept, on the N-Gage website (found at this address), until the 20th of August 2008. The game concepts must be compatible with N-Gage, Java, Symbian S40 or Symbian S60 phones.

The three concepts declared to be the most innovative will have the chance to be published by Nokia with the purpose of becoming hit games. Moreover, the first winner will receive $40,000 in cash, while the second and the third places will be awarded $20,000 and respectively $10,000. The winners will e announced on October 29, 2008, during an award ceremony at the Nokia Games Summit in Rome, Italy.

Dr. Mark Ollila, director of games publishing, Nokia, said: "Nokia enthusiastically presents this Mobile Games Innovation Challenge as a unique opportunity for the best and brightest mobile game developers worldwide to really rock the industry with innovative, one-of-a-kind concepts that showcase what you can do with our mobile platforms. The pre-production contracts and $70,000 in cash prizes toward development of the winning game concepts is only part of the excitement - the Challenge also gives developers a chance to truly make their mark on global mobile gaming through unique and positively disruptive gaming concepts never seen before."

Nokia's Mobile Games Innovation Challenge is a welcomed initiative, and we'll probably get to see really cool games after its winners are announced. Let's just wait for October to come.