Where Politics And Video Games Collide

The secrecy being necessary for integrity thing is much more believable than some people seem to think. Even though the CIA has aspects everybody knows about, it also has aspects nobody knows about...well, that they can tell anyone, anywhere, ever. And the reason is functionality. If certain methods, people, or material are leaked, it inhibits their ability to do their jobs.

Think about it:

if the ESRB regularly gave consumers and politicians information on the people who worked there, nobody would want to, or the employees would have to deal with bribery and blackmail just as regularly;

if the ESRB consistently leaked little details about game content that publishers wanted secret, publishers would find it necessary to go around them, such as through another rating system

if the ESRB exposed the whole rating process using only previous employees, methods, etc. to avoid endangering anyone or spoiling anything, they would be called out for "problems" that have since been rectified;

if the ESRB showed current methodology and personnel and subject matter to the public, regardless of the aforementioned problems that would be extant in such a situation, then idiots who know nothing about either politics or videogames (i.e., politicians) would still complain about every little detail and be heard and force changes that anyone more informed on the subject or on our Constitution would have realized were asinine and counterproductive and useless, but which would nevertheless become the new ESRB methodologies because of politics and stupidity--thus, yet again, forcing the industry to cobble together a new, working, and not corrupted ratings system with which to bypass the emasculated ESRB.

Obviously the ESRB has their own spin on anything that gets out about them, but in a nation where politics is tainted with corruption and liberties are constantly under assault in "little" ways, it's hard to imagine an organization like the ESRB managing to maintain its independence and trustworthiness as a ratings system if they had to be open and transparent enough to let politicians and other businesses get ahold of their inner workings, methodology, personnel, etc..