What is UGG? Game modifications created by the people that play them. For example, two friends used the engine of a game called "Half-Life" to create a modification for online play called "Counter-Strike." It was a minor thing, really. It only became the most-played game online for about the next five years. At this moment (as of this writing), there are 145,508 players playing the game, and players in aggregate spend an average of 7.4 billion minutes a month playing (that's over 14,000 years).

It's been a while since my half of the Gaming Insider touched on virtual worlds, so we're due. While Second Life's marketing clout is getting trashed in every new-media, technology and marketing publication out there, Disney has bought a virtual world of its very own -- Club Penguin, with 700,000 registered users -- for $350 million. It's a good move for Disney: Club Penguin is profitable, and with its own virtual world, Disney can create and control an in-world experience far better than it could with Second Life or another third-party-owned world, and with a much better reach into its …

Forget the Wii. Nintendo's real golden goose, and likely the only thing that kept them going during the dark "GameCube" years, was its grip on the handheld market. (Yes, I'm very punny). I, among with 48+ million others, am a proud owner of a Nintendo DS. And for the marketers out there, that is a genuine 24-carat golden egg.

Lots of news for casual games lovers this week. For one, a study by Macrovision found that 83% percent of gamers surveyed would be willing to watch a 30-second ad in exchange for free gameplay. That's a good sign for the longevity of the 30-second spot, as DVR penetration increases and more online advertisers switch to shorter ads to avoid abusing consumer attention.

What do the movies "True Lies," "A Christmas Story," and "The Game" all have in common? They all relate to the topic of this week's Gaming Insider. In "True Lies," one character gets caught up in an imaginary spy scenario, swindled by a used car salesman. In "The Game," the protagonist gets caught up in a huge mystery, which is ultimately just a game bought by his brother for a birthday present. In the classic "A Christmas Story," Ralphie finally gets a decoder ring and finds the secret embedded in his favorite radio broadcast: "Drink More Ovaltine."

It's been a good summer for movie tie-in games: "Spiderman 3," "Transformers," "Ratatouille," "Shrek the Third," "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," and "The Simpsons Movie," with some other possibilities upcoming in late July and early August. Sadly, these licensed video games are, for the most part, mediocre at best. They are rarely innovative, often derivative, and almost never worth the $60 that the latest-generation titles go for. And it's going to stay that way until Hollywood studios start taking video games seriously.

"Everybody loves 'Dance Dance Revolution,' so why not make it massively multiplayer?" seems to be the thinking behind Acclaim's offering of "Dance!" It's a massively multiplayer online game where players "dance" to a beat to compete and can optionally use a USB dance pad. A neat idea, but it indicates the possibility of an entirely new direction when considered along with Endemol's announcement of "Virtual Me...."

The big news this week is the shellacking Rockstar's taking over its upcoming title, "Manhunt 2." Reacting to the game's violence, video ratings boards have either refused to rate it or slapped it with their most prohibitive ratings -- both, seemingly, the game's kiss of death.

Gaming may be in danger of becoming a bubble. I started thinking about this when reading a press release about the founding of Brash Entertainment, a new game studio that will make film-to-videogame adaptations. Said President Nicholas Longano, "It still surprises some people to learn it is an industry bigger than Hollywood, and the growth rates... we're talking about double-digits on an ongoing basis." This kind of thinking worries me. Generally speaking, when a company comes out of the woodwork because things look good on paper -- instead of defining a market need and addressing that need -- it's a …

So, it's looking like by the time the New York State Legislature ends its legislative session on June 21, its members will have reached agreement on a bill that criminalizes the sale of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors, punishable by up to four years in prison. For the purposes of comparison, here are some other offenses that rate four years in prison in New York state: perjury, statutory rape and criminally negligent homicide.