TaeKwonDood writes "The brain region responsible for believing you can seduce Giselle Bundchen or make a YouTube clone for bobble-head doll movies successful has been located. Surprisingly, it is not in a bottle of Jager, it's in the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala."

Gamasutra has a lengthy piece up today looking at the ins and outs of ESRB ratings. There are a lot of misconceptions about the process, and ESRB president Patricia Vance took some time to set the record straight: "Q: What do raters receive or know about a game before the video arrives? Do raters receive information on the game along with the video? For example, could a publisher send along promotional or explanatory material for the rater? A: Along with the video, the only other information that might be provided to raters is a script or lyric sheet provided by the publisher for the game being evaluated. Capturing language and dialogue on the video submission, particularly in context, can be tricky. So sometimes, instead of having a video with a montage of several instances of foul language (including the most extreme), the raters review the scripts and lyric sheets to gain a better understanding of the dialogue and frequency with which profanity and other potentially offensive language occur."

Via GamePolitics, an article at the Hollywood Reporter site on the ESRB's snappy comeback to 3D Realms. You may recall Scott Miller (3D Realms' co-founder) saying a short while back that he viewed the ESRB's smackdown as a 'sucker punch'. The Reporter article lays out the ESRB's response, courtesy of the board's president Patricia Vance: "It's unfortunate that Mr. Miller's feelings were hurt, but let's be clear ... The ESRB is the self-regulatory body for the video game industry. We were established by the industry and we simply enforce the rules and guidelines that the industry has imposed upon itself. The games industry determined that there should be rules with regard to the proper display of rating information and that ESRB should enforce those rules by notifying companies who are not in compliance ... Unfortunately, due to 3D Realms' lack of experience submitting games to the ESRB, it would appear that they were unaware of the various industry guidelines in place and the consequences of not complying with those guidelines."

Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs blog passes on the comments of ESRB President Patricia Vance on user-generated content in Unreal Tournament III . As you may recall, it was announced at E3 that user mods will be available for the PS3 version of the game, and eventually the 360 as well. Vance clarified the situation from the ESRB's viewpoint: "The ESRB's Online Rating Notice, which warns consumers that 'Game Experience May Change During Online Play,' is intended to advise the buyer that, because the game enables users to play with others over an internet connection, they might encounter user-generated content that isn't a part of the ESRB rating ... That content can vary, whether it's chat or skins or maps or what have you, and it's certainly possible that some of that content won't be in line with the rating that we assigned to the product. That's why we created the notice in the first place."

Gamasutra has the news that the ESRB is beginning to enforce rating-related audience restrictions on game trailers. D3 Publisher's trailer for Dark Sector was judged AO by the ESRB, and demanded in correspondence to the company that it be removed from the internet. Take-Two, meanwhile, has been handed a letter saying their trailer for The Darkness needs to be 'age-gated' if it is to be seen online. Update: 06/26 14:20 GMT by Z : The Gamasutra post has been updated to clarify the situation: "ESRB president Patricia Vance has responded to Gamasutra with a prepared statement that claims today's notices are routine ESRB Advertising Review Council procedure followed since 2005. According to Vance, the appearance of both publisher emails today are simply reminders that mature rated trailers must be age-gated, and that if a trailer's content is found to be in violation of the ESRB's trailer requirements, it must be removed or replaced with an edited version."

GogglesPisano writes "CNN earlier reported that former HP chairwoman Patricia Dunn would plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of fraudulent wire communications stemming from her involvement in last year's corporate eavesdropping scandal. The story was later amended after charges again st Dunn were dropped. The original charges, four felony counts, were reduced to misdemeanors in exchange for a plea bargain. Her three co-defendants are expected to receive 96 hours of community service; in Dunn's case this sentence is likely to be waived due to illness." Update: 03/15 02:21 GMT by KD : The prosecutor in the case issued a correction to the eariler pronouncement that Dunn would plead guilty to a misdemeanor. "At court today, Patricia Dunn did not enter any plea in response to the misdemeanor count, and the court exercised its discretion by dismissing the case against her," the revised statement said.

In April of this year, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board will move to using full-time reviewers to determine ratings for game content. With rumblings of 'play the whole game' legislation in the halls of Congress, the organization is pre-empting the problem by having full-time raters. The ESRB's Patricia Vance commented on the project: 'Having full-time raters will allow for each one to have greater experience actually reviewing content and recommending ratings ... this would provide each rater with a greater sense of historical parity for ratings, not to mention helping them to be more attuned to pertinent content and how it should be considered from a ratings standpoint. The full-time raters would also be responsible for play-testing final versions of the game, time permitting, which would allow for ESRB to play-test a greater number of games than it currently does.'

simoniker writes "Over a year after the infamous 'Hot Coffee' incident, author and game designer Brenda Brathwaite explores the tragic aftermath on the GTA mod community — including interviews with 'Hot Coffee' creator PatrickW, the ESRB's Patricia Vance, and more." From the article: "The second version of San Andreas was made 'much more mod-resistant' according to Patrick, and among members of the community, there is doubt that future versions will be moddable at all. 'This has already made good people leave the scene,' Patrick adds. Among those that remain, there exists a certain amount of caution. 'Some innocent modding stuff isn't getting released,' says Patrick, 'because modders are afraid it might cause another controversy.'"

Via GamePolitics, a Washington Post article about the political landscape surrounding game ratings. Author Mike Musgrove touches on Jack Thompson, Senator Brownback, and interviews ESRB ratings board chair Patricia Vance. From the article: Vance, the head of the ratings board, says the group has conducted surveys showing that there is an 83 percent awareness of the game industry's ratings system among consumers. By comparison, the movie ratings system has about 90 percent awareness, she said. Vance said the video game industry is a target largely because it still suffers from a perception that games are for kids, even though the age of today's average gamer is over 30. 'I think a lot of people who propose this sort of legislation have never purchased a game or don't play them,' she said."

An anonymous reader writes, "In the U.S. Congressional Inquiry into the HP spy scandal, it was revealed that HP used Web bugs to track the source of leaks. HP's Fred Adler considers them a useful investigative tool which HP will keep using. Since dubbed PattyMail after HP Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, Web bugs have been around for a while. But it turns out the vulnerability they represent is far worse than first thought. Microsoft Outlook won't have a patch until 2007. The company at the center of the scandal claims they've done nothing wrong. But could repressive governments use them to track down critics? Can anything be done to stop Web bugs?"