London — Gameloft has emerged as the best mobile games publisher in 2008 in terms of game quality, according to research conducted by industry website PocketGamer.biz.

The PocketGamer.biz Quality Index tracks review scores across the most popular mobile game websites, and found that Gameloft scored an average of 7.95 out of 10 from 145 reviews of its titles. The top publisher and games charts are at the bottom of this press release in full.

Gameloft thus confirms its leadership in game quality for the fifth year running. The average media rating received by Gameloft games since 2003 has been constantly above 79%.

“Each year, our production teams manage to carry the games’ quality one step further, and each year our competitors fail to reach the quality bar that we’re setting,” said Michel Guillemot, Gameloft President & CEO. “I’ve been constantly stating how important quality is for our business and our consumers and results so far prove us right. I wanted also to take this opportunity to thank PocketGamer for publishing this quarterly analysis that is the reference for our industry.”

“This year again, our teams have proven to be the best and I wanted to thank all the 3,300 creators working in our studios for this outstanding result,” Julien Fournials, Sr. Vice-President Production said. “Each game developed and published by Gameloft has passed strict internal quality control and consumer surveys and the same level of demand is applied to all kinds of games, from Midnight Bowling 2 to Hero of Sparta.”

The PocketGamer.biz Quality Index tracks reviews of Java and BREW mobile games only – it doesn’t cover iPhone, N-Gage or Android titles. Sites tracked include PocketGamer, IGN Wireless, AirGamer, Mobile Game FAQs, Handy-Player, JeuxPo and MobileXP.

Top 10 Mobile Games Publishers for 2008 (with average rating)

1 Gameloft

2 EA Mobile

3 RealArcade

4 Digital Chocolate

5 I-play

6 Player One

7 Glu Mobile

8 HandyGames

9 Disney Mobile

10 Vivendi Games Mobile

Gameloft via MobileTechNews