Tony Hawk takes top prize at first ever Mobies Awards

This afternoon at the CTIA trade show, attendees were treated to something new--an award ceremony devoted exclusively to mobile games. The First Annual Best of Wireless Gaming Awards, or the "Mobies," were handed out at the event in Atlanta.

Mobile game news and review site Wireless Gaming Review (WGR) organized and produced the event, whittling a field of 120 finalists down to 20 winners.

Games came from almost a dozen countries, including Japan, India, Finland, France, Germany, the US, and the UK. The judging panel was a mix of games critics, industry insiders, and game design professionals.

WGR cofounder and Mobies judge Matthew Bellows said in a statement, “Mobile game programmers, artists, and producers have done amazing things with incredibly limited resources. It’s high time that their efforts were celebrated at a ceremony like this."

The full list of Mobies winners is as follows. For mobile newbies, the Lightweight categories cover games that check in at under 256K and can be downloaded from a carrier's game deck, while the Unlimited categories are for larger games targeted for running on MS Smartphone and Symbian operating systems or for the N-Gage.

Lightweight
Action: Nightmare Creatures, Gameloft
Adventure: EverQuest: Hero's Call, Sony Online Entertainment
Puzzle/Board: Bejeweled Multiplayer, JAMDAT Mobile
Platform: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Gameloft
Strategy: Lemonade Tycoon, JAMDAT Mobile
Sports: JAMDAT Bowling 2, JAMDAT Mobile

Unlimited
Action: Spy Hunter, Fathammer
Adventure: Pandemonium, Ideaworks3D
Puzzle: Slurp, JAMDAT Mobile
Platform: Rayman 3, Gameloft
Strategy: Lemonade Tycoon (Smartphone), JAMDAT Mobile
Sports: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Ideaworks3D

Best Lightweight Game
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Gameloft

Best Unlimited Game
Spy Hunter, Fathammer

Best Mobile Game of 2003
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Ideaworks3D

WGR (which is in the process of being acquired by CNET Networks) has posted additional information on the event and is also covering CTIA from the perspective of its editors, who are roaming the show floor.