Here’s something interesting that Apple’s doing – they’ve launched a collection of games on the App Store that are nominated for Game Developers Conference’s 16th annual Game Developers Choice Awards. There are 12 mobile games up for awards, and they’re all worthy choices, including Downwell ($2.99), Her Story ($2.99), and You Must Build a Boat ($2.99).

These do take a bit of a liberal notion of “nominated for an award" as they list some games that are only honorable mentions and not just actually up for the awards tonight on March 16th, but that’s beyond the point. This seems interesting and rather important for Apple to be featuring a major industry award on the App Store. And with the promotion that these games are getting for being nominated, it only makes these awards mean that much more to the developers both in prestige and visibility. Apple’s giving a big indie game push righ tnow as well – they’ve got an Indie Game Showcase with Her Story‘s Sam Barlow, a featured 50% off indie games section, and a list of their 15 favorite indie games as well to peruse.