Thanks, You Make Doing This Fun

Driving people to a new iPhone/iPod Touch review site like iPhone Gamer Blog is hard.  In the last 2 months (2 months, 8 days to be exact) we have had 21,223 visits.  That might sound like a lot but when you look at some of the competing websites out there; we’re still just small time.  In that 2 months, this site has gone through 3 redesigns, we have ventured into buying ads through Facebook, Google and Yahoo ad search (We found out that though the ads were fairly cheap, they really didn't cause any recurring visits) and have used a variety of social media to get the word out about our site.  We now have 3 writers, including myself, that do reviews, news and previews and have a fairly steady stream of developers asking for us to review their games (Thank you guys!).  All in all, it has been a difficult process but one that has been a lot of fun and fulfilling.

We would like to continue increasing the number of people that come to the site and we are looking for ways to do so.  We know that currently about 20-30% of all of the people that arrive at our site will return again.  That's pretty good but we would love for it to be higher.  Any ideas on what we can do to get you to return?  We want to know what you are looking for when you arrive at our site.  Is it news, reviews, previews, promo codes, features or something else entirely?  This site is so much fun to run when we have people talking back to us so maybe a forum is where it’s at.  So why are we writing this?  Honestly, we wanted to see what/if any ideas you have for us to continue to grow and move to the next level.

Below are a few graphs that show our ups and downs depending on the week for the last few months.  Another report shows the top 10 reader countries.  We have had readers from all over the world including Iraq and Mongolia.  The site is continuing to grow (it grew by 20% in the last month) and we're extremely excited to be a part of that.  No one is more important than our readers (the developers are pretty important too!).  Going forward, we are going to continue our quest to be your one stop place for all of your iPhone, iPod Touch and eventually iPad gaming needs.   In the meantime, please tell your friends about us, tell us what you would like to see in the future, find us on Twitter and bookmark us.

GTA: Chinatown Wars - News - Awesome Sale

My favorite game of 2010 is now on sale all weekend long on the App Store.  A great price for $9.99 (regular price), it will be the crazy low price of $6.99 this weekend.  I am literally still playing this game despite my review being done a month agao.  I am about 8 hours in and only 30% done.  If you have a few extra buucks laying around and want to play the game that makes most other iPhone/iPod Touch games look bad, this is the one to get.

The next 4 things you need to do:

Read our review right here,  buy the game, find the cheat codes after you buy the game and if you haven't yet, for god sakes buy the game.

60 Mario and Friends: Old Games are Back - Garbage

This is not a review, just an angry observation.  The 2nd best selling app in App Store is currently 60 Mario and Friends: Old Games are Back.  Even though it has 617 ratings with a 2 star average, it has remained the 2nd best selling app for 2 straight days at $.99 a pop.  If you aren't aware of what this "game" is then let me tell you.  It provides 60 sounds of old games (Marion, Donkey Kong, etc)  There is no gameplay at all.  You just play sounds of old Nintendo games.  The developer, Isayonline Services, has delivered a bogus game that utilizies Nintendo's golden characters to make itself money.



Three groups should be ashamed of this game being in the top of the App Store; the consumers, the developer and Apple.  If the consumer would actually read the description of the app they would know better.  Hell, if they even looked at other user's reviews they would know better.  The developer obviously has no rights to the source material whatsoever and in a quick money grab are trying to bring in whatever cash they can before Nintendo sues them and makes them take their app down.  Finally, Apple is just approving all kinds of crap lately.  I love how they approve an app that obviously steals copyrighted material by Nintendo yet they won't add Google Voice.  This just goes to show you that the manta, buyer beware, should be all the more prevalent in this digital age of App Store junk software.

Premiering-iPhone Gamer Blog's Crazy Thursday Giveaway

Today we have the following 3 things to give a way:




A free promo code to recently 4 star rated Scribble Pilot! See review here.



2 Awesome Battle Bears t-shirts - battlebears.com/store/ -  Review coming tomorrow.



To win one of those 3 things, simply add us on Twitter and mention us @iphonegamerblog in a tweet.  That's it.  First come, first serve.

Quick Weekend Thoughts

Call of Duty, World at War Zombies, Madden, and N.O.V.A  are in the top 10 in top grossing games on the App Store.    I think that's a shame. None of them are worth the money.  Try picking up a game like Scrabble if you want a good weekend game.  It's really well done and will literally give you hours of enjoyment.  Better yet, buy Trenches or Boxed In 2.  Since I mentioned Madden as a bad buy, I guess I need to mention that even though I never did a review, don't buy this game.  EA is simply capitalizing on a well known product name.  The game isn't very good and loses its luster after about 10 minutes.  If your looking for a good football game, try Backbreaker.  Review coming soon.

Merry Christmas iPhone and iPod Touch Gamers

Regular updates will ensue in the next few days.  Reviews of The Simpsons, NFS: Shift and Baseball Superstars: 2010 are coming up.

Still working on design

I have went through about 10 different themes on WordPress.  WordPress is a powerful development tool.  New reviews coming in the next few days including Call of Duty: World at War Zombies and Modern Combat: Sandstorm.  It's going to be a FPS weekend!