2012 — free game may harbinger future of iPhone games

Or so says a great article on CNet. The free game 2012 is a tie-in to the movie and is fairly simple. But, according to the article, it uses a feature that may never have been tried before. The object of the game is to get to Tibet (digitally, of course). You do so by answering some tough trivia questions. And here's the innovation: you can use "lifelines" like in the TV game show by using your iPhone to call friends for help — directly from within the game. The article says that this is an example of innovations that will be making their way into games. It also interviews developers who talk about the prospect of incorporating augmented reality, in-app purchasing, and cloud computing.