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For better or worse, platforms such as the iPhone and Facebook are changing the way we develop, publish and even think about videogames. Despite heavy skepticism only a handful of years ago, most industry executives' eyes now light up when you mention these emerging platforms and new business models.

Not all of them, of course, actually know how to leverage this new potential, and some of the businesses they helm will be dragged under in the coming years by a failure to adapt to the new realities of the market. Capitalism, like evolution, isn't always simply a matter of survival of the fittest; the ability to adapt rapidly to changing circumstances is the true key to long-term success.

In all of the talk about how new platforms are changing the business of games, however, we often lose sight of what may be an even more important issue - the way in which these platforms are actually changing games themselves. Any gamer can tell you that Facebook games are very different beasts from their console counterparts, or that iPhone games are slowly evolving a rule-book of their own which is quite distinct from those of previous titles. What's less immediately apparent is how some of that thinking is feeding back into more traditional gaming platforms, and introducing sweeping changes to how games are developed.

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