We took this ancient idea and incorporated it into our mobile multiplayer games and it has been so well received that it surprised even us. We brought in a great impersonator who did some parody recordings of Stewie from Family Guy, Hank Hill, Christopher Walken, and funny personalities. They turned out absolutely hysterical. When you sink someone’s battleship in Fleetmaster you can tell them exactly how bad they are, when someone makes an obvious blunder in Blast4 you can laugh at them, and you can do it in some of the funniest voices around. I have found it particularly funny when you know the other player has not updated yet and has no idea where these jeers are coming from.

Users can hit the "Chat" button in any game to send an audio taunt

We also added the foundation for our avatar system in this update. Users can select from a wide variety of avatars to represent themselves in the games by setting the avatar from the dashboard. This part of the 2.2.537 update represents the baseline entry point for our avatar system. We plan to release additional functional updates to the avatar system in the coming months that make it possible to customize your avatar to a much greater degree, including customizations unlocked based on achievement.

The final portion of this update is the credit system that allows the user to obtain credits to unlock taunts and avatars. We implemented a credit system that allowed us to stay true to our goal of making every aspect of the games free to the end-user. Instead of releasing this content as an in-app purchase or paid upgrade, we were able to allow users to download free applications and obtain credits after running the application one time. Players can now obtain all of the content in the entire game absolutely free, this was incredibly important to us. We are totally dedicated to keeping our games completely free for our players.

Select a free app and run it once to get credits

We are very happy with the end result and the very warm reception that this update has received. A big “THANK YOU” to everyone who plays our games. We want all of our players to now that we listen to you diligently attempt to improve your experience every step of the way.

Just over two weeks after the release of Fleetmaster & Blast4 (our free multiplayer games that we released using Apple’s Game Center framework) the games have done an incredible 350,000 downloads. Strangely enough the vast majority of those downloads have come from outside of the United States and predominantly from European countries.

The American iPod/iPhone users have always been troublesome, largely because of the very young average age of the iPod gamers and app users. It very common to see cases where a paid version of an application, nearly identical to the free version, has much better reviews. At-any-rate it has been my experience that European and Asian mobile users pick up all the new stuff much more quickly than their American counterparts. They were first to the text game, first to the mobile application party, and now the first to appreciate true mobile multiplayer gaming.

In my observations I have also seen that a lot of “more complex” games seem to do a lot better outside the US. I think this goes back to the demographics of the user but also says something else. I predict that more complex games (in terms of functionality, depth of story line, user interface, etc.) will eventually become predominant and overtake the Angry Birdsesque casual games. We have seen this evolution in arcade gaming, console gaming, and PC gaming and I see no reason why we won’t see it again in the mobile gaming vertical. I’m not knocking Angry Birds, everyone in the company loves it, in fact I applaud them for doing an incredible job. Developers make games for the marketplace, Angry Birds was obviously a job well done.

Developers on new platforms start our their evolutionary life cycles hampered by hardware constraints, participate in the “look prettier than the other guy” arms race generally fueled by graphics and processing hardware advances, realize they sacrificed game play focusing on being the “prettiest game on the block” (and pay the financial price for such a realization), and then settle out to a happy medium producing all-around good games.

We are very pleased with the success of Fleetmaster & Blast4 and big thanks to all of our users out there, we hope you have as much fun playing our games as we have making them. We will follow up with some detailed usage stats soon.

While split testing is far from rocket science, lots of people are needlessly scared of it and so don’t do it, Widawer said. The key is to test things that are sufficiently different that your work and effort isn’t wasted. For example, testing two different versions of a headline with just minor differences will not be as effective or beneficial as testing two different headlines that are substantially different. Another thing to keep in mind is to get difference perspectives while coming up with your tests, ideally more viewpoints and ideas than just yours alone. This will prevent narrow thinking and result in a more positive test.

Check out The Joel Comm Show each Wednesday at 12PM Eastern time to get valuable information on running your online business and hear from some of the big names in the industry.

You can listen to the podcast and archives anytime, but catch the show live on Wednesdays at 12PM Eastern, and take advantage of the chat room and the opportunity to ask questions and get them answered.

Carrie Wilkerson, AKA “The Barefoot Executive” is a wildly successful, yet endearingly down-to-earth CEO of her own online company that she started from scratch. Gain inspiration and new insights into specific ways for you to explode your own online profits with whatever project you have in mind.

Learn from the best – Joel Comm has written bestsellers on making money from AdSense and new marketing techniques like mobile and social media, while Zig Ziglar is a legend and an inspiration for many a top-name entrepreneur (including Joel Comm) thanks to his bestselling books on selling, marketing, and now motivation. This is a business event you won’t want to miss!

While lots of aspects of online marketing are about making money and how to hone your business skills, these skills really cannot be separated from your creativity. Creativity is needed in virtually every aspect of making money online, from writing blog posts, to developing products, to writing marketing copy and developing your social media persona and strategy. Thus Joel Comm’s presentation really filled a valuable niche for those just starting out or continuing to grow their online businesses.

JV Alert was started by Ken McArthur and is a great place for online entrepreneurs to network, learn, and make contacts that will ultimately expand their businesses and grow their bottom lines. A great way to get help on whatever projects you are currently working on, JV Alert helps attendees take their projects to the next level, no matter where they are at in their businesses.

Joel Comm, well-known social media innovator, spoke on the topic of “11 Social Media Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.” Having quite literally written the book on Twitter (Twitter Power), Joel is well-positioned to speak on the dos and don’ts of marketing through such social media avenues as Twitter and Facebook.

The conference also featured the presence of the CJ Executive team, who were on hand to give their vision for the future of Commission Junction and the industry as a whole, as well as to answer questions from attendees. Conference attendees had the opportunity to participate in hands-on workshops with the team as well.