If you've been gaming as long as we have, you know that Columns is one of Sega's great puzzle games. Like most puzzle games, the object is simply to line up four same-colored gems -- horizontally, vertically or diagonally -- and watch them explode. Whether you're familiar with the game or not, we've got some good news: Sega is giving away the iPhone version of Columns for free in celebration of USA's Independence Day. The app will be free starting midnight, Friday, July 3, all the way through Monday, July 6. Sega didn't specify a timezone, so we suggest you avoid downloading it if the price reads anything other than free.

Granted, Columns Deluxe -- which includes ports of Columns and Puyo Pop -- is only $1.99 normally. It hasn't received terrific reviews either. But hey, it's hard to argue with free.

Our problem isn't that we're waffling on whether or not to buy one of these gorgeous, felt, PlayStation One-shaped iPhone cases. Our problem is that we can't stop buying them. Every time we confirm our order we think of yet another reason we need one. What if we lose the first one in a house fire? What if the second one goes through the wash? What if we want our iPhone to have a different yet identical outfit for every day of the week like Doug Funnie?

We hope you understand our predicament. We also hope you understand why they seem to be temporarily sold out.

[Via Gizmodo]

Some people in the video game industry predict the mobile games business could eventually grow to topple the handheld gaming market, Wedbush Morgan disagrees. In its July industry report, analyst Michael Pachter estimates the mobile games industry is currently closer to $2 billion and, even with expected growth, the market may only expand to $4-6 billion in the next three to five years.

In a section titled "Mobile Phone Games are a Fad," Pachter explains that, while 1 billion iPhone applications have been downloaded across 31 million Apple products sold, "it is not evident that more than 20% of these downloads are games." Suggesting the iTunes App Store has generated "under $400 million in game downloads" in its first year. Pachter does predict the mobile game industry will grow at 25% per year for a few years, but will eventually fall as competing devices enter the market.

The report also calls Electronic Arts' emphasis on mobile games "misplaced." EA Mobile has grown steadily over the last few years, but the report estimates the mobile games division is -- along with that of competitors Gameloft and GLU Mobile -- "barely profitable."

According to the report, finger pointing in Apple's camp should directed toward the "open forum" structure of the store and Apple's business model. Apple runs the game download service for an estimated 30% fee, leaving 70% to the game's publisher, the report claims. The section on mobile games goes on to conclude that handheld systems, like the new PSP Go, will "maintain its niche, without significant cannibalization" from the mobile games industry.

While speaking with id Software's John Carmack and Escalation Studios' Tom Mustaine yesterday, we only briefly broached the subject of iPhone game pricing. Doom Resurrection's lofty (by App Store standards) $10 price tag puts it in a particularly prickly situation, with Carmack telling us that "convincing people who've been spending $1 on games to spend $10 is a real problem." We can imagine!

He's not entirely without hope, however, as he looks at Resurrection as a value proposition, trading higher production values for higher costs. In fact, Carmack's hoping to set a precedent with DR that will allow for "bigger iPhone games" in the future -- something he says he'd like to see a lot more of. "There's only so much you can do with games that cost two or three dollars -- there's only so much production value you can put into that," he told us. The clear answer: Make Doom-based alien flatulence apps.

This weekend, ngmoco announced plans to remove the original Rolando from the iPhone/iPod Touch App Store, to allow the sequel to launch on July 1 without competition from its own predecessor. However, in response to a fan outcry, the company has decided not to delist the platformer.

Before the announcement of the change of plan, Offworld's Brandon Boyer speculated that the delisting was designed to create "artificial scarcity" for the title, and enticing one final rush of downloads before the game disappeared -- and then making the title available once again when the sequel's sales dropped.

In addition to canceling the removal of Rolando, ngmoco has reinstated Topple to the App Store, a game that had also been removed to make room for its own sequel.

Though he didn't exactly spell out what it's going to be or when it's going to be hitting digital shelves, id Software's John Carmack told us his newest iPhone game will be getting DLC. He let slip yesterday morning during an interview about recently released Doom Resurrection that the game would be getting DLC "sometime soon" -- downloadable content just became an option for iPhone games, with the launch of OS 3.0.

When we pressed him on whether we'd see downloadable anything for the upcoming flood of id Software games coming to the iPhone, he kept his cards a bit closer to his chest, saying it's technically "possible" but nothing's set in stone yet. He also revealed that Resurrection will be getting multiplayer add-ons in the upcoming weeks, so for those of you who already took the $10 plunge, you may want to ask your best buddy to do so as well.

Update: We got some clarification on the DLC from id Software's John Carmack just now, saying, "There won't be any DLC until we have moved the projects to requiring 3.0, and we aren't sure exactly when that will be. Pretty much all of the titles are being set up for DLC in the future. We are prepping the "Spear of Destiny" levels for Wolfenstein 3D classic, and all the various classic games have sequels and mission packs that we can offer. For Resurrection, new content will have to be created from scratch. I expect we will know within a few weeks if the reception to the game is good enough to justify it."

An upcoming patch to Mass Effect Galaxy promises to increase performance on "lower-end devices" by an "estimated 50%," according to BioWare's official Twitter account. Released on June 22, Mass Effect Galaxy is the iPhone OS-exclusive title which details some of the backstory for characters featured in the upcoming Mass Effect 2. According to users on BioWare's official forum, the app runs at a pace similar to that of the original game's infamous elevator system (read: hella slow). BioWare promises the patch will release within the next ten days -- just enough time to finish loading the elevator sequence shown above.

Some iPhone games are the picture of simplicity, honing a premise down to one, bite-sized gameplay idea. There are others though that take a kitchen-sink approach, seeing just how much stuff they can jam into Apple's portable. Guinness World Records, a reworked version of the Wii/DS release, is firmly in the latter group, but it thankfully manages to hit the mark more often than it misses.

We already knew that recently bought by Bethesda company id Software are looking at a hefty lineup of upcoming iPhone games, but after speaking with company co-founder John Carmack this morning, we found out a little bit more about the potential for more classic reboots, like Doom Resurrection, in the future. "It really depends on how this one is received by consumers before we can make any plans, but I'm very interested in the prospect," Carmack told Joystiq.

Apparently, he's most interested in seeing this treatment for Quake, though he also noted that Quake 3 Arena is still "possible" on Apple's handheld. Why not Quake Live on Apple's OS X, Mr. Carmack? Unfortunately, we ran out of time before we could ask. It is high on his "high priority" list though, right? So we've got something then? John? Hello?

Please?

Speaking with id Software's John Carmack earlier today, we got the sense that the man has a hunk of burnin' love for Apple's iPhone. Aside from bringing a metric ton of classic id titles to the device, the legendary developer let us know that the Wii game once being talked about around the hallowed halls at the company is what eventually became Doom Resurrection.

"We like to think of it as a more guided experience than an on-rails game," Carmack told Joystiq this morning, referring to the game's character control system. "Originally, I was pitched the title as a Wii game -- I dropped some hints about this earlier in the year but nothing substantial, in case the game didn't work out or it wasn't fun or something like that," he continued. Considering the $9.99 asking price of Resurrection versus the $50 a Wii title could have cost, we (and our wallets) are more than happy with Mr. Carmack's choice.

If there's one thing that's less mysterious than actual prestidigitation, it's prestidigitation that requires the use of an iPhone. But street magician and extreme thing doer David Blaine is hoping you'll forget that for long enough to drop $1.99 on his new iPhone collaboration with Partners 1993, which let's your replicate his "See A Card" trick.

Perhaps Blaine is thinking that his name and the promise of being like him will be enough to move digital units. See, through years of intense training, Blaine has managed to exceed human limitations in many areas, such as holding one's breath or deluding one's self.

The first two iPhone games out of Tecmo have been pretty much exactly what we would expect from an early mobile Tecmo game (that wasn't an arcade port of Star Force or something) -- simple minigames with pictures of girls involved. We didn't expect both of them to be blackjack, but that's exactly what Tecmo is offering on the App Store: Rio Blackjack, in which players interact with an anime-style dealer named Rio, and Girls of DOA Blackjack: Kasumi, in which players compete with a reused character model from Dead or Alive.

Much more effort appears to have gone into the third game, Annie's Wild Shot, an adorable, cartoonish Wild West shooting game. Annie's Wild Shot features optional, clever motion controls, allowing players to swing the phone around to change camera angles.

Wild Shot is available in the App Store for 99 cents from now through July 9, when it will be bumped to its 'normal' $3.99 price. Check out some gameplay footage after the break.

In an interview with Joystiq, id's John Carmack stated that he is "pretty passionate about the benefits of the iPhone" and plans to continue supporting the platform. "I've got a slate of iPhone titles, I expect to have an iPhone release every two or three months for the next year," said Carmack, noting that id will likely continue to plow through its classic titles (hope you like Doom!) before moving on to titles like Doom RPG and Wolfenstein RPG and eventually something based on id's upcoming title Rage.

Carmack stated that iPhone projects don't require much of id's focus, saying, "These are things that get a few people put on them for a little while, are fun for everybody involved."

"So far it looks like they're making pretty good money," said Carmack, "but they're not the blockbuster titles that they go do $100 million dollars."

Read the entire interview with John Carmack and Zenimax CEO Robert Altman right here.

You might be confused as to why we just posted a YouTube clip from the 2007 PSN hit flOw at the top of this very story. See, friends, that's not actually flOw -- it's an iPhone game from developer Ketara Software, titled Aquatica: The Underwater Adventure, and it's the biggest ripoff we've seen since the harrowing 2007 adventure title (and Game of the Year contender) Limbo of the Lost.

Thatgamecompany's Jenova Chen, who released the code for the Flash version of flOw shortly after its release, responded to the app by tweeting, "I released flOw source for people to learn. I didn't expect to see it on iphone without quoting the creator." In the comments on the YouTube clip above, Ketara responded to Chen's claims by explaining, "actually, all the source code is completely, 100% written from scratch," informing him that, "in general, most games within each class are practically the same, just different graphics." (Psst -- your graphics aren't different, Ketara!)

As more and more commenters harangued the small developer for apparently copying the PSN title, Ketara began damage control -- first by apologizing to Chen and the gaming community, by adding attribution to the video and app description, then ultimately by pulling the game off the App Store altogether. Ketara promises that "nothing like this" will happen again, so we probably won't be seeing Petals: The Flying Floral Adventure any time soon.

Do you ... do you get it? Because it's a bone. Yeah, we were pretty proud of that gag, too. Now, we'd like to take you, the reader, inside the joke, to show you how it was created. Think of it like that Sesame Street short about making crayons, only with lulz. In fact, if you could play that music in another tab, it would be ideal. Go ahead, we'll wait.

1. We looked at this bone-shaped controller for the now accessory-compatible iPhone, and then we died inside.
2. We decided we probably shouldn't suggest that the people who made the phone, 22moo, should themselves die, as they may be completely nice, albeit awful, people.
3. We tried, in vain, to pick up our spirits.
4. Our spirits irrevocably broken, we decided to make the most obnoxious, insipid gag we could think of about the controller and leave it at that.
4a. We also decided against including additional details about the controller, because if you're interested in it, you can go right to hell.