The Game Awards 2022 crowned Marvel Snap as the winner of Best Mobile Game, but it's a hollow victory. Apart from Apex Legends, the rest of the nominees are anti-consumer money sinks that reinforce rather than break stereotypes. While we think Marvel Snap deserved victory, the list of nominees could have been a much better representation of mobile gaming in 2022.
Why did Marvel Snap deserve to win?
Before we delve into the rest of the games up for an award, let's give Second Dinner Studios a round of applause. In our review, we praised how Marvel Snap brought new life into the collectible card game (CCG) genre, avoiding the bloat that plagues so many of its ilk. It's easy to learn, and its apparent simplicity hides a wealth of challenging and rewarding gameplay.
Marvel Snap deserved to win because it ticked all the boxes for an excellent mobile game while bringing something new to its genre. It's a genuine blast to play that won't empty your wallet, and we can't recommend it enough. But the competition should have been much more substantial.
Was Marvel Snap the best mobile game of the year?
Open Twitter and search "The Game Awards," but ensure you're ready to endure the crossfire. Defining the "best" of anything is a challenging prospect, and in a field as diverse and polarizing as video games, it's downright impossible. Everyone has their standards, and for those who think Marvel Snap shouldn't have won, I'm sure your arguments are valid.
But despite the task's impossibility, there's no harm in trying to define the best mobile game. It's all good fun, so why not? But of course, we can't line up every mobile game of 2022 and compare them at once; it's impossible! Far better to have a shortlist of nominees and decide on the best from there. But these nominees should offer voters a broad spectrum of games, which is where The Game Awards spectacularly failed.
The majority of nominees were a showcase of everything terrible about mobile gaming
A good shortlist of nominees should offer a diverse selection of games. Games that exemplify the best of their genre, innovate, and show people that mobile gaming isn't about microtransactions and loot boxes! And yet what did we get?
Diablo Immortal? Really? A predatory, greedy game that sucks the life out of the franchise while draining your wallet. A more appropriate award would have been for Most Controversial, but to make it onto the shortlist of nominees for best games of the year is shameful.
Genshin Impact and Tower of Fantasy also made the list. Did we really need both? While I know plenty of people who thoroughly enjoy Genshin Impact, the reliance on gacha mechanics and gameplay blatantly copied from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild hardly makes it an example of what makes mobile gaming great, plus the game won the award last year. Still, I can't entirely begrudge its existence as a nominee; it is extremely popular. On the other hand, Tower of Fantasy built its brand around being a Genshin Impact killer and failed miserably. Why on earth is it here?
Finally, Apex: Legends. The only other game that in the list that deserved to be nominated. While it does rely on loot boxes and microtransactions to earn money, it's a tightly polished port of its PC counterpart that is thoroughly enjoyable, despite some iffy controls.
Notice any common themes amongst the nominations? Lootboxes. Microtransactions. Free-to-play. Online multiplayer. Even Marvel Snap, a game I play daily, reflects the same frustrating mechanics that plagues many mobile games. While I would have expected one or two of these games to appear as nominees, the fact that all five dance along to the same tired mobile gaming mantra is a disservice to mobile gaming.
What other games could have been nominees?
I don't claim the authority to declare the best mobile games of 2022. (That being said, keep an eye out for our favorites later this month!) but there were a few games released this year that showed us how diverse and spectacular the platform is.
Finding Paradise
Despite being an old release on PC, the mobile port launched this year is one of the best RPGs on mobile. It's everything an RPG should be, absorbing, impactful, and lacking in microtransactions, i.e., everything Genshin Impact isn't.
Rocket League: Sideswipe
This game is a masterclass in creating a mobile version of a PC or console game, and while it launched in late Dec. 2021, it could have easily made the list. Whereas Apex: Legends Mobile tries to replicate its bigger brother, Sideswipe offered a brand new version that still managed to capture the spirit of the original different yet somehow feels the same. Sure it had microtransactions, but its sidescrolling twist on the original 3D formula should have made it an easy nominee.
Feral Interactive's ports
I know it's not a game but bear with me. Feral Interactive is one of the most important gaming companies, creating reliable Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android ports of popular PC games. Thanks to them, you can play Alien: Isolation, one of the best horror games around, on your phone. These ports are a huge part of mobile gaming and easily deserve to be nominated.
Truth is, there are tons of mobile games out there that offer new ways to look at mobile gaming. So where the hell were they?
A diverse list could help break stereotypes
Mobile gaming has grown in leaps and bounds over the last few years. Today you can download ports of AAA titles that run immaculately or get lost in the countless stunning indie games on the Play Store. You can game for years without encountering a single microtransaction or loot box and realize that mobile gaming isn't a free-to-play wasteland of ads and cheap promotional games.
Problematic nominees occur across all The Game Awards categories. However, it's still disappointing to see the mobile gaming category reduced to titles that, in one way or another, exemplify the negative stereotypes we associate with mobile gaming.
But let us give Marvel Snap another round of applause. For while its victory rings hollow, it's still damn good fun.