Swedish Games Industry board member and CEO of mobile game studio Midjiwan has published an open letter to the games industry on LinkedIn. Christian Lövstedt’s letter claims that mobile gaming represents 55% of the global gaming market, but is often ignored or even looked down on by award platforms. While the letter doesn’t directly mention it, it’s interesting that this post arrives just a couple of hours before The Game Awards, hosted by Geoff Keighley.
Interestingly, Lövstedt himself admits that award platforms ignore mobile games due to perceptions of “predatory monetization and low quality.” However, he goes on to emphasize that while games like those occupy the market by a wide margin, there are plenty of great games that go ignored as a consequence.
There Is Some Weight To This Argument
Do gamers, journalists, and award platforms look down on mobile gaming? Absolutely. A lot of our audience plays major sports games like FC 26, NBA 2K26, Madden 26, and the like. Those are all primarily console games, even if some of them have mobile counterparts. Whenever something like WWE 2K25 Netflix Edition (a mobile port) is announced, community and journalist reactions are straight away pessimistic. I’m also guilty of this as much as anyone.
But “mobile slop” is a real problem. Games like Crash Royale involve real strategy and good gameplay, but even those titles have aggressive microtransactions. That’s just how mobile games make money. Most people aren’t willing to pay $60 for a game on their phone; heck, most wouldn’t even pay $15. This is why a lot of mobile games use the free-to-play model with aggressive monetization.
Lövstedt’s letter also claims that highly artistic and creative titles, such as Grindstone and Fantasian, only get nominated for “Mobile Game of the Year” or something similar. They never get a mention for best indie, best RPG, or best puzzle game. I get that, but as much as I enjoyed playing Grindstone through Apple Arcade back in 2019, did it really deserve a nomination over other puzzle games like Baba Is You, Return of the Obra Dinn, Outer Wilds, and Manifold Garden? Some would say yes, others would disagree.
It is important to state here that Monument Valley 3, a mobile-first game, did get nominated in the 2026 BAFTA Game Awards. A couple of reasons why: Monument Valley is a popular series, the game is highly creative and artistic, and there are no aggressive microtransactions. Let’s be honest, mobile games like those are rare. Even the games in our best 2025 mobile sports games roundup don’t exactly line up with that criteria.
