Here, yet more senior mobilegamer.biz readers reveal their games of the year – see execs from King, SciPlay, My Games, Flexion, FunPlus, Kwalee and plenty more do the same in parts one, two and three of this week’s articles.
Adam Smart, AppsFlyer director of gaming product
King Arthur Legends Rise from Kabam and Netmarble is my game of the year. It’s only in soft launch at the moment but it’s fast becoming my new favourite game. From the complex character builds to the technical level of the dungeons it’s keeping me captivated. Besides, who could resist the whole dark moody King Arthur artwork!
Sonja Ängeslevä, Phantom Gamelabs CEO
APAC developers have dominated 2024, so my pick is a game from APAC / Singapore that introduces something new. While it’s not a personal favorite, Capybara Go is a standout title that cleverly combines social casino mechanics with text-based roguelike elements—and a dose of cuteness.
Berkley Egenes, Xsolla chief marketing and growth officer
Monopoly Go has literally changed the game in how to market and acquire users. Love playing with my family. Also, shout out to Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile I cannot go on a plane without seeing someone playing this game.
Laura Taranto, Big Fish senior director of product
Ok, so I’m not limiting it to games released in 2024…my game of the year is Hexa Sort, which launched at the end of 2023. Why? Its successful combination and placements of IAP and IAA, its way of branching out and finding fun with a puzzle mechanic that’s not blast, swap or merge and its satisfying visuals and animations.
Görkem Türk, Laton Ventures founding partner
My game of the year is Love and Deepspace. I believe that the importance of using social features and elements will continue to grow. Additionally, innovating in some aspect (e.g execution superiority, monetization, gameplay mechanic) will hold importance in scaling competitively.
Halli Thor Bjornsson, Lockwood CEO
My game nomination has to be Chess.com. An amazing product, platform and community. It’s also very unique in that Chess.com has had a huge impact on the world of chess itself and is an incredibly important part of how chess manifests itself in our global culture. I’m not sure they get enough credit for that to be honest.
Chess is also a bit of a case study on how AI didn’t destroy something but I’d argue added both to the richness of chess as well as its popularity. Someone needs to make a documentary about this!
Archie Stonehill, Stash head of product
My game of the year of Domino Dreams by Superplay. So often, game innovation takes place at the metagame level – for example pairing a match core with a city builder meta or a slots core with social systems or a narrative. But it’s much rarer, and for me more exciting, to see studios that experiment with core gameplay.
Admittedly, Domino Dreams uses a well-known core mechanic, but it uses its dominos framework to create a special combination of luck and skill gameplay. It’s a great evolution on Superplay’s previous Dice Dreams because, like tri peaks solitaire, in Domino Dreams, the player feels he/she has agency and skill even if the devs still control the gameplay with “luck” mechanics. I love this dynamic in the best match-3 and solitaire games, and it is all built with the same top-tier production and live ops we expect from Superplay.
Daniel Rantala, Fingersoft chief growth officer
Genshin Impact is a textbook example of how to run diverse live ops and keep the game and revenue fresh, years after release. The stunning content, engaging core gameplay and story interactions are genuinely interesting, and personally it feels almost criminal that the game can be played for free. I’m happy to pay real money to keep the gacha machine running, and I can’t say that about many games!
