Former ESRB rater spills bad beans, ESRB president cleans up

What goes on inside the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB)? You’ll get a few ideas from the former employee who shared his woes while working with the ESRB. However, the rating board’s head honcho was quick on tagging his statements as misleading. More on this after the jump!

Former Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rater Jerry Bonner came out in the open to shed light on a few issues he wants fixed if the rating board is to maintain its integrity. Without delay, ESRB president Patricia Vance responded to shoot down his “misleading statements, factual inaccuracies, and misinterpretations.”

First off, Bonner listed down his suggestions for the ESRB:

• Drop the Adults Only (AO) rating and replace it with T-16.
• Actually play games instead of just watching videos.
• Don’t rate games based on predecessors.
• Don’t be secretive.
• Give raters more say in final rating determinations.

Vance, however, stated that the author who just stayed with the ESRB for six months is wrong for the most part. ESRB’s head honcho denied that ratings are changed by any committee after raters do their jobs, and said that a title being a part of a series has no bearing on the decision.

She attributed what Bonner believes to be secrecy to integrity and trustworthiness, and mentioned the importance of protecting the confidentiality of the raters to avoid influence from external sources.