For every overpriced Final Fantasy re-release on iTunes there are dozens of free-to-play social games, refugees from a slowly fading Facebook love affair with microtransaction-driven casual titles finding new sources of revenue in the fertile mobile market. In this year's list of the top grossing iOS games and apps…

Notorious for releasing limited-time only dragons and driving players insane trying to breed them before time runs out, Backflip Studios shows fans mercy for the holidays, unlocking every dragon ever released in the game for breeding and purchase—for a limited time, at least.

Backflip Studios takes the addictive formula of the wildly popular Dragonvale, swaps colorful lizards for quirky machine creatures, and guarantees that I'll be obsessing over robot breeding and battling for the next year.

On no less than two separate occasions have I bemoaned the addictive nature of iPhone breeding game Dragonvale, the mobile game I've played longer than any other. Now Backflip Studios takes the same formula and applies it to robots. Dammit.

With player numbers dropping and the recent revelation that 85 percent stop playing after the first day, a shadow hangs over the once ridiculously profitable social gaming scene. Speaking today at App Conference in San Jose, Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello said that the decline of social gaming is overplayed;…

You want to know how a free-to-play iPhone game keeps a guy that barely has time to play new releases engrossed for more than 365 days? I have one day left to breed a Solstice dragon, and three days to breed a Sapphire. Curse you, Dragonvale.

I never should have downloaded a free iOS game about breeding cute and colorful dragons; it was a tremendously bad idea on my part.