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The Pocket Gamer Awards use a three-stage public process: readers nominate games, Pocket Gamer turns those nominations into a shortlist, and fans vote on the shortlisted entries. Winners are announced after voting closes, usually at a later reveal or live event. The 2027 cycle generally covers releases from 1 October 2025 through 30 September 2026, with exceptions for evergreen categories such as Best Character and Best Game We’re Still Playing.
Dates, category names and eligibility rules change each year. When you are ready to participate, the nomination form and voting hub for that specific cycle are the operational authority.
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The Pocket Gamer Awards process at a glance
The awards are not decided in one vote. Public participation happens twice: first through nominations that build a longlist, then through a public vote on a shortlist. Pocket Gamer’s editorial and industry knowledge is used to organise the categories and check the longlist, but the published descriptions say the winners are determined by the public vote.
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|---|---|---|---|
| Nominations | Pocket Gamer opens category nominations and uses submissions to build a longlist. | Submit favourite eligible games, updates or experiences through the current nomination form. | About one month in the 2027 description. |
| Shortlist and vote | Nominations are totalled, important missing candidates are checked, and a shortlist is published. | Choose from the shortlisted entries in the public voting form. | About one month for voting in the current-cycle description. |
| Winner reveal | Votes are counted and category winners are announced at a later reveal or event. | Watch the announced reveal for the results. | January for the 2027 cycle; 6 December in London for the 2024 live reveal. |
How to nominate a game
1. Find the nomination period for the correct cycle
Pocket Gamer publishes a new nomination form for each annual awards cycle. The form is open only during the stated nomination window, which is generally around a month. Anyone can submit nominations while that window is open. If the form has closed, a late nomination normally cannot be added to that cycle’s longlist; wait for the next cycle or use the site’s current awards information to confirm whether an extension has been announced.
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2. Read the category descriptions before choosing a game
Categories do not all use the same eligibility test. Most categories in the 2027 cycle are tied to games, updates and experiences released between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026. The page specifically identifies Best Character, Best Game We’re Still Playing, Best Community, Best Webshop, Best Game Update and Best In-Game Collab as exceptions. Those categories are not required to follow the new-release window, although updates should generally fall within the period where possible.
Use the category wording rather than assuming that every award is for a newly launched game. A long-running game can be relevant to an evergreen category even when it first launched outside the normal window. Conversely, a newly released title may not fit a category whose definition is about a character, community, webshop or collaboration.
3. Submit a specific candidate
Choose the category that best matches the game or experience and enter the requested title information in the live form. Check spelling, the edition or platform named by the form, and the relevant release or update date before submitting. The public pages do not state a universal limit on the number of nominations one person may make, nor do they publish a single account, age or geographic rule for all cycles. Follow the instructions displayed on the active form rather than carrying assumptions from an older year.
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Eligibility is defined by the cycle, not by the date on which you personally discovered a game. For the 2024 cycle, new releases had to fall between 1 October 2023 and 30 September 2024, and nominations closed on 31 October at 6 PM UK time. That closing time was specific to that year; it is not a permanent annual deadline.
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How Pocket Gamer creates the shortlist
Nominations form a longlist
During the first stage, Pocket Gamer collects the public’s category nominations. The total set of submissions is the longlist: a broad pool of candidates that reflects what readers put forward during the open period.
Editors check the longlist before publishing finalists
Pocket Gamer says it totals the nominations and checks that important candidates were not missed. It then publishes a shorter list for each category. This means the shortlist is not described as a simple automatic ranking of raw form entries. The organiser applies a completeness check before the public vote, while the available descriptions do not publish a formula for how many nominations guarantee a place.
Because the number of nominations and votes has not been officially published, claims about the most-nominated game, vote margins or a numerical threshold for making the shortlist cannot be verified from the award pages.
The shortlist is the voting field
Once the shortlist is live, nominations are no longer the mechanism for selecting a winner. A game that was nominated but did not appear on the shortlist is not part of that cycle’s final public ballot. The shortlist announcement is therefore the point at which you should check that your preferred title is actually available to vote for.
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Who can vote, and what “public vote” means
Pocket Gamer describes the awards as “Organised by industry experts but voted on by you, the fans.” Its 2025 announcement also states that the winners are all determined by a public vote. In practical terms, fans select winners from the published shortlist during the voting window.
The published descriptions do not set out a weighted jury-plus-public formula for these awards. They also do not state a universal rule covering voter age, country, account registration, vote limits or duplicate-vote controls. Those requirements can be presented on the live voting hub and may change between cycles, so read the instructions on the form before submitting.
How to cast a vote
- Open the voting hub for the current Pocket Gamer Awards cycle after the shortlist has been published.
- Read each category’s shortlisted entries and select your preferred winner using the controls provided.
- Review the complete ballot before submitting, paying attention to any confirmation or eligibility message shown by the form.
- Submit within the published closing period. A voting page that is still visible after the deadline is not evidence that late votes will be accepted.
The current-cycle description gives voters one month. The announcement for the 12th awards likewise says voting remains open for a month. The exact opening and closing dates are announced separately each year.
Eligibility windows and annual changes
Release windows are deliberately cycle-specific. The following examples show why an older deadline should not be reused for a new ballot.
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| Cycle or announcement | New-release eligibility | Other published timing | Winner event or detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2027 cycle | 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026 for most categories | Nomination stage around one month; voting one month | Winners revealed in January |
| 2024 cycle | 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024 for new releases; some categories used the wider mobile-game back catalogue | Nominations closed 31 October at 6 PM UK time | Live reveal on 6 December in London; shortlist covered 20 categories |
| 12th awards announcement | 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025 | Voting open for one month | Date and format were set by that cycle’s announcement |
The 2027 page’s named exceptions are important: Best Character, Best Game We’re Still Playing, Best Community, Best Webshop, Best Game Update and Best In-Game Collab do not have to follow the standard new-release window. The page still indicates that updates should generally fall within the period where possible. If a candidate sits near a cutoff or belongs to an exception category, use the current nomination form’s wording as the deciding rule.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.When voting opens and closes
Pocket Gamer does not use one permanent calendar date for every awards year. The stable pattern is a nomination period, a separately announced shortlist, a voting period of roughly one month, and a later winner reveal. The 2024 cycle demonstrates the variation: nominations closed at 6 PM UK time on 31 October, while the live results event took place on 6 December in London. The 2027 description instead says winners will be revealed in January.
Always check the dates displayed on the current cycle’s nomination page, shortlist announcement and voting hub. Pay attention to the stated time zone, especially when a deadline is given in UK time. A date copied from the 2024 or 12th-awards cycle may be wrong for the 2027 ballot.
What happens after voting closes
Pocket Gamer counts the submitted votes after the public ballot ends and announces the winner of each category. The reveal can be a later online announcement or a live event. The 2024 awards used a live London reveal on 6 December; the 2027 page says winners will be revealed in January. The changing event format does not alter the basic process: the winner is determined after the voting period, not when the shortlist is published.
Are these the same as the Mobile Games Awards?
No. The Pocket Gamer Awards and the PocketGamer.biz Mobile Games Awards are separate programmes. The Pocket Gamer Awards ask the public to nominate and vote for games and related categories. The Mobile Games Awards are positioned as a celebration of behind-the-scenes industry talent, so their purpose and judging context are different. A nomination or result in one programme does not automatically carry over to the other.
A practical checklist for participants
- Confirm that you are using the current awards cycle, not an archived page.
- Read the category definition and identify whether it follows the normal release window or is an evergreen exception.
- Check the applicable release, update or collaboration date against the cycle’s stated period.
- Submit during the published nomination window and note the exact closing time and time zone.
- Look for the shortlist announcement; only shortlisted entries appear in the final ballot.
- Vote through the official voting hub before its stated deadline and follow any on-screen voter instructions.
- Use the announced reveal date or event information to find the final results.
Common points of confusion
“I nominated a game, so it must be in the vote.”
A nomination contributes to the longlist, but Pocket Gamer still reviews the pool and publishes a shortlist. Only the shortlisted games proceed to the public ballot.
“Industry experts choose the winners.”
Experts organise the awards and help check the candidate pool. Pocket Gamer’s public descriptions say the winners are determined by the fans’ public vote; they do not describe a weighted expert jury selecting the result.
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They are not. The 2024 window was 1 October 2023 to 30 September 2024, the 12th-awards announcement used 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2025, and the 2027 cycle uses 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026 for most categories.
“Every category requires a new release.”
The 2027 cycle lists evergreen exceptions, including Best Character, Best Game We’re Still Playing, Best Community, Best Webshop, Best Game Update and Best In-Game Collab. Category-specific wording controls eligibility.
“The awards have a fixed December ceremony.”
The 2024 live reveal was on 6 December in London, but the 2027 page says January for its winner reveal. The date and format can change with each cycle.
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