San Francisco, CA (05/13/2025) - Liftoff, the leading provider of marketing, monetization, and creative solutions for the mobile industry, has announced the winners of the Mobile AppDev Awards 2025. These awards celebrate the most innovative games and apps in the global mobile market.
The winners were chosen to showcase the best collaborations, social events, and minigame events in midcore and casual gaming, as well as marking both notable newcomers and evolving mobile games.
For the first time, the 2025 AppDev awards also celebrate non-gaming apps for their innovation and use of engagement, social, and AI-powered features, with insight from the team behind AppRefinery, Liftoff's new insights platform designed to revolutionize app development and growth.
"As the mobile landscape evolves, we're seeing non-gaming apps adopt the same user-first design principles that have long driven success in mobile games. Expanding the Mobile AppDev Awards to include these apps felt like a natural next step, and with AppRefinery, we're excited to help more teams unlock the insights they need to grow." —Brendan Fraher, GM at GameRefinery, a Liftoff Company
The winners in each category are as follows, alongside the judging panel’s rationale.
Best Collaboration Event (Midcore)
Diablo Immortal x World of Warcraft: Eternal War by Blizzard Entertainment
This collaboration seamlessly merged two of Blizzard’s biggest IPs, World of Warcraft and Diablo, delivering an authentic and engaging crossover to celebrate World of Warcraft's 20th anniversary. This event stood out for its faithful recreation of classic Warcraft elements, bringing faction-based strategic warfare into the game, and the introduction of iconic World of Warcraft items to the game as cosmetic rewards.
Best Collaboration Event (Casual)
Stumble Guys x My Hero Academia by Scopely
The Stumble Guys’ collaboration with My Hero Academia won the Best Collaboration Event (Casual) award for its smooth integration of key elements from anime into the Stumble Guys universe. The collaboration was exceptionally well-crafted, bringing Quirks, a key aspect of the anime, to Stumble Guys as special abilities in the various event modes. A new Hero Exam race map was introduced which brilliantly captured the intensity and challenge of the anime’s Hero Exams, and the event featured a vast collection of collaboration-exclusive skins and items, bringing fan-favorite characters and aesthetics to Stumble Guys in a way that felt authentic, engaging, and true to the spirit of both franchises.
Best Social Event (Midcore)
League of Legends: Wild Rift - Battle of Twin Cities by Riot Games
League of Legends: Wild Rift won the award for Best Social Event (Midcore) for its Arcane: Battle of Twin Cities event—a unique social team competition designed to promote the second season of Riot’s Arcane on Netflix as a part of the larger Cheers to Arcane event series. Immersed perfectly in the Arcane theme, players could choose to join either Piltover or Zaun factions, battling for control over territory tiles on the event’s dynamic battle map. Both factions’ players would complete event missions, including Arcane trivia quizzes and playing the game’s MOBA matches, to contribute to their team’s goal and win the event.
Best Social Event (Casual)
Monopoly GO! - Tycoon Racers by Scopely
Monopoly GO! has become a trendsetter for casual game event types and is being recognized with the Best Social Event (Casual) award for its competitive Tycoon Racers event. At the start of the event, players team up into small teams of 4 players and compete against other teams. The event progresses with each team member collecting event points from their own core gameplay.
Best Minigame (Midcore)
Goddess of Victory: NIKKE x Dave the Diver: Aegis the Diver by Level Infinite
Goddess of Victory: NIKKE has won the Best Minigame (Midcore) award for its Aegis the Diver collaboration minigame, which successfully recreated the popular PC/Console title Dave the Diver with NIKKE characters. Players could dive, fish, and forage for ingredients in a restaurant management simulator that looked and played just like the original, complete with its signature pixelated art style, effectively serving as the first playable version of the game on mobile. The minigame also offered plenty of engagement with a purchasable battle pass and missions. Additionally, players could unlock a special Goddess of Victory boat skin for Dave the Diver.
Best Minigame (Casual)
Merge Mansion - Secret Supply by Metacore
Merge Mansion’s Secret Supply minigame event has been recognized as the Best Minigame (Casual). Merging classic gameplay with a casino-style arcade machine, players can pull a lever to generate and merge items, strategically managing limited energy to maximize their score before the machine overheats. The event, which was Merge Mansion’s first-ever minigame event, introduced a fresh gameplay format and has coincided with key performance spikes for the game.
Best Newcomer (Midcore)
Pokémon TCG Pocket by The Pokémon Company
Pokémon TCG Pocket has won the Best Newcomer (Midcore) award, after it revolutionized Card Battler games with its casual approach of putting the primary focus on card collecting. The Pokémon brand has once again utilized its key strengths. The app's performance was also stellar as it was a Top 10 Grossing game in the US from its launch in October to the end of 2024, and it dominated the number 1 spot in Japan for most of that time period.
Best Newcomer (Casual)
Domino Dreams™ by SuperPlay
Domino Dreams has won the award for Best Newcomer (Casual). The game launched at the beginning of 2024 and has since scaled very impressively, growing to be one of the biggest games in its subgenre. It’s been a remarkable year of growth overall for SuperPlay, with both Domino Dreams and Dice Dreams reaching new heights.
Biggest Evolver (Midcore)
Brawl Stars by Supercell
The award for Biggest Evolver (Midcore) has been given to Brawl Stars, which evolved throughout 2024 by experimenting with game modes, embracing collaboration events, and introducing limited-time power-ups as a key element in their major events. They also revamped their ranked gameplay and trophy progression systems, with changes not just limited to events. The game really resonated with its audience, and Brawl Stars reached global launch-level performance throughout the latter half of 2024.
Biggest Evolver (Casual)
Seaside Escape®: Merge & Story by Microfun
Seaside Escape has steadily climbed the charts by staying in tune with event trends and consistently rolling out fresh content, earning it the award for Biggest Evolver (Casual). By tapping into popular event formats, such as excavation and social win streaks, the game has maintained strong revenue growth, reaching the Top 40 Grossing and thus proving its ability to scale in the competitive merge2 market.
Non-Gaming App – Best Feature Innovation
DraftKings by DraftKings
DraftKings has won the non-gaming app award for Best Feature Innovation for its Stats Hub updates, which introduced tools like Line Moves, Consistency Sheets, and Systems & Streaks. These features give users more ways to analyze betting trends and player performance and make data more accessible within the app. This helps users make informed decisions without relying on external sources, and allows them to integrate deeper insights directly into the betting experience in a practical and user-friendly way.
Non-Gaming App – Best Use of Engagement Features
Trip.com by Trip.com
Trip.com has won the non-gaming app award for Best Use of Engagement Features for its TripGenie AI Assistant. This feature significantly improved user engagement in 2024 by offering personalized travel recommendations and seamless booking experiences.
Non-Gaming App – Excellence in Social Features
Snapchat by Snap
Snapchat has won the non-gaming app award for Excellence in Social Features after it introduced a feature allowing users to design personalized homes within Snap Map. This added a new layer of self-expression and social interaction to the app and transformed the map into a more immersive and customizable space, making digital connections feel more personal and dynamic.
Non-Gaming App – Excellence in AI-Powered Features
Pinterest by Pinterest
Pinterest has been recognized with the non-gaming app award for Excellence in AI-Powered Features after improving its user experience by delivering personalized content recommendations and enabling creative tools like AI-assisted collages. These features have been shown to triple user engagement compared to traditional Pins. Additionally, Pinterest's AI-driven advertising tools streamline campaign creation and improve ad targeting, contributing to increased advertiser satisfaction and revenue growth.
For more information about the awards and the finalists, and to see what got them onto the list in the view of the judging panel, visit the official Mobile AppDev Awards website.
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About Liftoff
Liftoff helps mobile businesses maximize their revenue. It provides machine learning-powered marketing, monetization, and creative solutions that create better ad experiences and connect people with the products they love. Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Redwood City, CA, Liftoff has a diverse, global presence.
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Big Games Machine