From G4TV:

A bill that passed the Texas Senate today would change sex offender registration regulations in the state so convicted sex offenders would have to provide law enforcement with each “alias, assumed name, nickname, or pseudonym, including a screen name, used by the person.” Presumably, the law includes gamertags, twitter user names, facebook names, and other public online identifiers.

The additional information would not be made public but would be available to law enforcement and social-networking sites, and presumably, video game companies. This gives companies the ability reject people from joining based on their inclusion on the list. The bill, introduced by Sen. Florence Shapiro, is headed to a vote by the Texas House, and should it pass,  the governor’s desk.

From The Escapist:

Controversy flared on Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic forums after the words "homosexual," "gay," and "lesbian" were auto-censored, and a moderator insisted that those terms did "not exist in Star Wars."

The story as we understand it, thus far: Players on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic community forums began to discuss how Bioware’s upcoming Star Wars MMO – and its playerbase – would handle same-sex relationships. As more and more threads started popping up about the issue, the discussion grew more heated. Eventually, forum moderators began locking the discussions.

Here’s Penny-Arcade funny take on the subject:

From escapistmagazine.com:

The theme for this year’s Game Design Challenge was enough to make a game designer blush: the first time they had sex.

Every year at GDC, the Game Design Challenge tasks a handful of designers with creating a game around a specific concept or object. Past years’ challenges include making a licensed game for the poetry of Emily Dickenson, creating a game that used fabric as a controller, or designing a game to be played with an animal. This year, a trio of developers were asked to design a game around their first time in the sack. There were a few rules, of course. There was really only one restriction – the game their game concept had to be playable on existing technology. Keeping their games Wal-Mart friendly wasn’t technically part of the rules, but the participants decided to err on the side of good taste, anyway. For the most part, that is.

From gossipgamers.com (via Digg):

 Erotic game developers Tech48 based in Japan is using face tracking technology to let players interact with the game. The game will shift angle depending on which way the player is looking at the screen which means looking up at girl’s skirts in this game.

 

From gamesindustry.biz:

Microsoft has paid an out of court settlement to videogames developer Jamie Durrant, who sued the company over claims of unaddressed homophobia within the company’s Lionhead Studios.

The unspecified payout has settled the case, in which Durrant was asking for GBP 45,000 over "hurt feelings", after his complaints of homophobic abuse were "blatantly disregarded" by Microsoft’s human resources department.

"We are pleased to have reached an amicable resolution to this matter with Mr. Durrant," said a Microsoft spokesman, according to PinkNews. "The terms of the settlement are confidential, but we can confirm that Mr. Durrant will not continue his employment at Lionhead as part of the agreement."

From news.ninemsn.com.au:

iPhone lovers can use their hot devices to view steamy adult videos in 3D.

Adult Entertainment firm Pink Visual is filming porn videos that can be viewed in 3D on iPhones encased in Wazabee 3DeeShells tailored for the popular Apple mobile devices by German firm Spatial View.

"We’re really excited to be working with Spatial View to provide our customers with a new dimension in porn, so to speak," Pink Visual product manager Kim Kysar told AFP on Thursday.

"This isn’t like the cheesy, 1970s 3D viewing experience that a lot of us grew up with; this is cutting edge stuff. The best part is that there’s no need to wear those awful glasses."