Apple has done it again. The company known for continual innovation launched the next game-changer. But the question that still exists on many people's minds: What game will it actually change?

In the past week, Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, and Sony have each used Facebook in connection with their game properties. The methods and level of integration were totally different in each example, but all three approaches were interesting and appropriate for the brands.

This week, Apple impresario Steve Jobs put a shot across Adobe's bow, explaining in detail why the iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad (The "iPlatforms," hereafter) do not and will not in the future support Adobe Flash. This of course has major implication for the Web as a whole, but this is the Gaming insider -- what does it mean for games?

I recently spoke to a class at USC, and in the Q&A afterward was asked a very interesting question: "Do you think everything will be a game?" It's a question I've been pondering for a while, but actually being asked by someone forced me into an answer.

Game developers like Zynga have thrown a major spotlight on social gaming with titles like "Farmville" and "Cafeworld." At the same time, these games are bucking another major trend, that of subscription online gaming. The model that made "World of Warcraft" such a huge money-maker for Blizzard and Activision might be ready to surrender to so-called "Free to Play" games.

The iPad cometh -- and with it, apps. And games. And ads.Rumor is, on April 7 Apple will reveal what it's done with Quattro and showcase the future of the ad platform for its mobile operating system. This announcement could, in a very real way, mobilize (pun intended) casual gaming ad opportunities.

The latest installment of the storied "Tomb Raider" franchise is slated to release this summer on Xbox Live and the Playstation Store. Or is it? "Lara Croft and the Guardians of Light" ditches nearly everything about the franchise except for the heroine.

The news that EA is dropping third parties from selling into the company's dynamic in-game ad inventory is a pretty interesting development. At first blush, it looks like a move to increase margins and control pricing of the inventory. The more I think about the announcement, though, the more I hope the rabbit hole goes deeper.

Last month was the annual DICE (Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain) Summit, and there was one talk in particular that captured a lot of imaginations -- Carnegie Mellon University Professor Jesse Schell's "Design Outside the Box" talk, which covered Facebook, convergence, and the future of reality-based gaming. The biggest takeaway from Schell's presentation is that games that connect to reality, either by letting you compete with your friends, or by awarding you points for real-world activities, exert a special kind of psychological hold on gamers, especially casual gamers.

Remember the original "BioShock?" The pivotal scene turned the tables on the gamer in a profound way. Typically a game sits there and waits for the player to tell it how to proceed: Run over there. Hide. Wait for the guard to pass by. Yay! But for a few minutes, "BioShock" switched the nature of the game. Instead, the game said "this is what we want you to do, and you can't keep playing unless you do it. We can control you too." I've sometimes wondered what that experience would be like as a whole game. Thanks to …