The case continues to be argued that studies have not been able to connect the dots between violence in video games to real acts of violence in young people. But is that really the argument that we need to be debating? Is it really as clear-cut as that?

In other words, why are we not arguing about whether violence needs to be in a video game in the first place? Nobody would debate that violence sells video games. As a matter of fact, it drives innovation in the gaming industry: the more realistic the violence, the bloodier the kill, the more horrific the maiming, the higher the earnings from the game title—and the potential for sequels.

Some might argue that violence is present in all video games, that it is a core element. They could point to a game like Pac-Man, where the goal is to eat or be eaten… or to a game like Space Invaders, where the entire focus of the game is to see how many aliens you can blast out of the sky before they land on your planet.

But are we talking about that level of intense, graphic violence when we then compare the “violence” of yester-year’s video games to that witnessed in the barrage of today’s video game lineup, right down to the video gaming console that is commercially driven towards our youth? Is the realistically-animated headshot of a soldier in Call of Duty 4—with ensuing blood spatter on the wall—really the same level of violence as shooting down an 8×8-pixel sprite on Space Invaders? I think any such comparisons are baseless, because they are founded on the existence of violence without comparing the level or extent of violence portrayed.

Of course, violence has been a part of our history. Even before video games came onto the scene, boys played games like “cops and robbers” and “cowboys and Indians” to pass the time. But that was play-acting. Children weren’t witness to gore and violence. The goal was never to see what sort of body count you could run up, how many cars you could crash, how many women you could beat—all with the promise of high scores and subsequent bragging rights to your friends. Visible blood did not even enter into the arena in arcades and computer games until a game called Wolfenstein 3D became publicly available—and did it ever re-capture the attention of gamers everywhere. Suddenly, game immersion became the name of the game, and you could go on a killing spree like never before, watching enemy agents take it to the chest, faltering backwards with a native language cry of despair.

It created a new hunger: Demands for more realism, more formidable enemies, longer periods of sustained violence and tension. Today’s games are light-years beyond the “simple” violence of Wolfenstein 3D, but they all owe their heritage to it, nonetheless.

And, of course, it has driven profit margins as well as technological advancements. Today’s games demand premium hardware in order to fully satisfy the game’s experience for the user. In order to keep up with the video games, to satisfy that hunger for more realistic violence, gamers have shown that they are more than willing to pay out the necessary money for the gaming experience.

But the increasing violence in video games has also garnered the attention of lawmakers, organizations, and parents. Still, the foot-in-the-door is not now something that can be easily shoved back out. The gaming industry stands to lose billions of dollars if someone stands up and says “Enough!” That’s enough of an incentive for the industry to obfuscate the issue, to make it appear to be an intrusion into the very freedom that we all have under the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Does that mean that I am of the opinion that the government should be the one to decide what level of violence my children are allowed to have access? No, because that is my responsibility as the parent of my children. The government’s responsibility is to act in the best interest of society as a whole—in accordance with that society’s expressed will, not to act as parent to children that already have parents. But I can understand why government officials and politicians want to set up some sort of standard—because the current self-imposed ratings system in use by the gaming industry is clearly a conflict of interest for them. They are assigning game ratings, but where is the incentive to take full measures to ensure that the ratings system actually means something?

Of course, some retails now routinely check ID when selling games that have an “M” rating, and this is a commendable move. But they are still an exception to the norm, and do video stores that rent out video games following the same policy? It goes back to the same issue of consistency: there is none.

Parents do have a right to know that if their child goes to the store with their friends and tries to purchase a game that is rated “M” that they won’t be able to. They can’t purchase cigarettes or alcohol when they are under the age of 18 or 21, yet they are able to purchase or rent games where they can blow people up, beat people up, maim people, engage in sexual acts, etc., all of which would otherwise land them in the prison system if they were to do those things in real life?

This is a real issue, albeit a moral one… but not one that rests solely on the parents. It is a moral issue that we, as a society, must address as a whole. And to start the dialogue, we need to make it not about who has the right to decide who has access to what level of violence—but about why we need increasingly violent games in order to be entertained in the first place? When did killing, maiming, gibbing, and beating up simulated humans become a game?