A racing game without crashes would suck.

@Draugen: Yes, absolutely. That was very well put. I still think that you can make interesting and engaging games without violence at all, but my main point I've been trying to prove her is, like you said, "move the focus of the challenge away from inflicting violence." Of course there will be a struggle to find something that feels as engaging as combat, but when we do find them it will open up so much more potential for games in all senses of the word.

I agree with you that I would like to see the industry less reliant on violence as the main draw in alot of games, but for me there is also a danger that shying away from violence in games will make them to abstract. I prefer games that, internal logic aside, are based in reality. If that reality is a sci-fi future or a fantasy past, or a mundane present is not really relevant. For these games to be interesting, they need some kind of conflict. And in a conflict, violence is often a natural consequence. I'm not saying moral or ethical, but natural.

Man is a violent beast, and if games where to remove the element of phycial (and even psychological) violence, I'm afraid I will quickly lose interest. That's not to say that I'm happy with the level of glorification of violence that there is a certain amount of in games today, but to remove it or actively supress it will, like I said, make alot of games too abstract for me. What I would like to see are different solutions and approached to violence.

I recently played through Spec Ops: The Line, and found myself enthralled by the game's handling of the effect and morality of violence in conflict. But your 3-man squad slaughtering wave after wave of incoming enemies took away alot of the impact for me. Later, I heard a really interesting idea on one gaming podcast or other. (possibly Weekend Confirmed) What if Spec Ops played like Heavy Rain? I think that would make for a much more interesting approach to the subject matter handled in the game, and the way I see it, that's where the solution lies. Have violence be a factor in games still, but move the focus of the challenge away from inflicting violence, and move it to dealing with the morality and the effect of the act instead.

@Shirogane said:

I wonder what would happen if we just forcefully removed violence from all video games, would the industry just collapse? Or do we actually have enough different ideas to keep it afloat...

Well, I think we would adapt in a really positive way. I was thinking the situation where violence was removed would more resemble a prohibition, so there would be a period to develop ideas using nonviolence, and then later let violence become valid again. That way we could find new ideas for games without the constant mechanic of defeating enemies, but still use that mechanic later on in a more diluted sense, if you get what I'm saying.

@Carryboy said:

@MistaSparkle: But you have those games, like civilisation.

Sort of. Like I said strategy games are much easier to apply to this concept. Civilization does great things with win-states because you don't have to play aggressively to win. Some of us want to see games where defeating enemies is not the main focus of the game mechanics, and we think it would be interesting to see what developers can do by completely removing that mechanic. We want more games that think similarly to how Civ was built.

@Morrow: Quite true all that. Once you get into virtual reality you get into the Matrix/Total Recall/Inception thing of not know what's real anymore, that could be really dangerous. I guess all we've really figured out from this is that you can't trust people to not use something for evil. To get back to the main topic, it would seem that the majority people don't actually want to remove violence from games, the ones that play them anyway, they want their violence, even if it hurts them in the process.

I wonder what would happen if we just forcefully removed violence from all video games, would the industry just collapse? Or do we actually have enough different ideas to keep it afloat...

@MistaSparkle: But you have those games, like civilisation.

@Carryboy said:

@MistaSparkle: Dumb, i must ask why must we move away from the competitive aspect?

I didn't say move away from the competitive aspect of gaming. I said move away from wanting to be the best at shooting someone. There are other goals out there and other things to be competitive at. Simply saying that most competitive games have the same problem that I find in a lot of other games. It's mostly a competition of who can defeat these enemies better than everyone else. That's fine, I don't want to take that away, I just want more games that have something to strive for other than defeating foes to reach a goal.

@MistaSparkle: Dumb, i must ask why must we move away from the competitive aspect?

@MistaSparkle said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I think that's a fairly good summary of the whole winning thing being tied to a sense of satisfaction, and I pretty much agree with all of that. I do not agree, however, that defeating an enemy is the most satisfactory thing you can do to get that feeling of accomplishment. This is all, of course, relative to each person. Most people would probably choose combat scenarios over something different because for so long combat has been the go-to thing for the accomplishing feeling we strive for, but further into the future I hope we start moving towards something different that can amount to the same satisfactory feeling.

Well, if it would exist, for me the most satisfaction would be virtual reality :D Be somewhere else, someone else, and do everything without consequence, experience places you'd never visit, or that don't exist. Screw combat, let me fly through space! :D

That would be incredible. Imagine being able to explore a whole new world or even just places you've never been to on Earth using your own eyes and actually moving through it in virtual reality. I would love a game built solely on exploration just like that.

Yeah, like in Avatar, exploring a place like Pandora would be awesome :)

@Shirogane said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I think that's a fairly good summary of the whole winning thing being tied to a sense of satisfaction, and I pretty much agree with all of that. I do not agree, however, that defeating an enemy is the most satisfactory thing you can do to get that feeling of accomplishment. This is all, of course, relative to each person. Most people would probably choose combat scenarios over something different because for so long combat has been the go-to thing for the accomplishing feeling we strive for, but further into the future I hope we start moving towards something different that can amount to the same satisfactory feeling.

Well, if it would exist, for me the most satisfaction would be virtual reality :D Be somewhere else, someone else, and do everything without consequence, experience places you'd never visit, or that don't exist. Screw combat, let me fly through space! :D

I think that virtual reality with violence would also be a great way to show people that games with violence aren't all there is. Imagine actually feeling the pain everytime someone hit or shot you, that'd put you off violence, and probably make you want to try something else, exposing all those people who only ever want to shoot people in the face to other things.

I can see where you're coming from, but that would be rather controversial because I think not everyone would react like that. I could image there would also be people who would become prone to violence and more desensitised towards it, maybe without realising it. Or another possibility would be that some individuals would no longer be able to distinguish the virtual pain from real pain, forgetting that beating someone in real life has actual consequence. That is the great danger of virtual reality I think, it could make you lose your connection to our reality almost completely, if you let yourself get immersed into it too much. Remember that scene in the beginning of Inception in that drug hole where all these people had chosen dreaming instead of living? That. Like those MMO fanatics...

I thought watch dogs was going to be that game until I saw the gun shooting part. That let the wind out of my sails a bit.

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I think that's a fairly good summary of the whole winning thing being tied to a sense of satisfaction, and I pretty much agree with all of that. I do not agree, however, that defeating an enemy is the most satisfactory thing you can do to get that feeling of accomplishment. This is all, of course, relative to each person. Most people would probably choose combat scenarios over something different because for so long combat has been the go-to thing for the accomplishing feeling we strive for, but further into the future I hope we start moving towards something different that can amount to the same satisfactory feeling.

Well, if it would exist, for me the most satisfaction would be virtual reality :D Be somewhere else, someone else, and do everything without consequence, experience places you'd never visit, or that don't exist. Screw combat, let me fly through space! :D

That would be incredible. Imagine being able to explore a whole new world or even just places you've never been to on Earth using your own eyes and actually moving through it in virtual reality. I would love a game built solely on exploration just like that.

I remember personally pistol-whipping a developer just last week for wanting to make a game without violence. Taught him a thing or two.

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I think that's a fairly good summary of the whole winning thing being tied to a sense of satisfaction, and I pretty much agree with all of that. I do not agree, however, that defeating an enemy is the most satisfactory thing you can do to get that feeling of accomplishment. This is all, of course, relative to each person. Most people would probably choose combat scenarios over something different because for so long combat has been the go-to thing for the accomplishing feeling we strive for, but further into the future I hope we start moving towards something different that can amount to the same satisfactory feeling.

Well, if it would exist, for me the most satisfaction would be virtual reality :D Be somewhere else, someone else, and do everything without consequence, experience places you'd never visit, or that don't exist. Screw combat, let me fly through space! :D

I think that virtual reality with violence would also be a great way to show people that games with violence aren't all there is. Imagine actually feeling the pain everytime someone hit or shot you, that'd put you off violence, and probably make you want to try something else, exposing all those people who only ever want to shoot people in the face to other things.

@Dagbiker: I've been thinking about this a lot since yesterday, and i think there could be some interesting ways to apply them to specific genres. Specifically, a JRPG where you battle with words, attack with spatial reasoning questions and defend with the power of logic or a first person Paper Boy where you're trying to throw papers in the mailbox. The narrative would most likely need to be more about the protagonist productively trying to create something, as opposed to trying to stop someone from doing something else (like a crime). Maybe I should have guarded the Paper Boy idea for myself.

@Retronator: Wow this is so awesome! It is so fantastic that we share the same idea! And your video is great, I'm going to finish the rest of them and subscribe to your channel in a little bit. I really agree with your sentiment that once people start getting in the mindset that it's not simply 'fight these guys and move on' we are going to start seeing this industry doing some really spectacular things! Thanks so much again for sending me the link to your blog!

@Hunter5024 said:

I saw that already, I guess you are right about why it's satisfying, but I feel like people would get more satisfaction from having something different from everything else on the market. This post did get me thinking about different ways games try to psychologically satisfy a player. Definitely an interesting topic, I may have to write something about that.

I hope that you do write something up similar to this because I feel like you really understand the idea and you are way better about expressing your opinions clearly, unlike myself :P

And yes, the part I made in bold is exactly what I was thinking.

Man, you're reading my mind. I find so many parallels in what you've written. Actually, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, started recording a vlog and I'd love to know what you think about it. I posted about it yesterday in this topic: http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion/30/creative-alternative-vlog-about-the-creative-side-of-video-games/554916/

@MistaSparkle said:

I think that's a fairly good summary of the whole winning thing being tied to a sense of satisfaction, and I pretty much agree with all of that. I do not agree, however, that defeating an enemy is the most satisfactory thing you can do to get that feeling of accomplishment. This is all, of course, relative to each person. Most people would probably choose combat scenarios over something different because for so long combat has been the go-to thing for the accomplishing feeling we strive for, but further into the future I hope we start moving towards something different that can amount to the same satisfactory feeling.

Well, if it would exist, for me the most satisfaction would be virtual reality :D Be somewhere else, someone else, and do everything without consequence, experience places you'd never visit, or that don't exist. Screw combat, let me fly through space! :D

I think that's a fairly good summary of the whole winning thing being tied to a sense of satisfaction, and I pretty much agree with all of that. I do not agree, however, that defeating an enemy is the most satisfactory thing you can do to get that feeling of accomplishment. This is all, of course, relative to each person. Most people would probably choose combat scenarios over something different because for so long combat has been the go-to thing for the accomplishing feeling we strive for, but further into the future I hope we start moving towards something different that can amount to the same satisfactory feeling.

@Daneian said:

It could be an interesting thought experiment to try to design one. Yeah, the easy answers are puzzle, music and adventure games but I want to see a heavily narrative-based game, complete with a goal and the tension of having obstacles you'd have to overcome to reach it, that didn't have any kind of physical, verbal or psychological violence.

I agree with this, Its almost perfect for a game jam.

But I would like to see someone try and make a FPS with out it being an FPS. Portal is a good example of an FPS that is not an FPS.

@Morrow said:

@Hunter5024:

Well I already told MistaSparkle what my take on the combat scenario is, might as well repeat myself :D

The reason why defeating an enemy is one of the most basic and most used game mechanics could probably be found in psychology. My take on that would be something like, well, for someone to play a game they need motivation, the feeling of accomplishing something. Very basically defined as "winning". From all the things you can win, from a puzzle to a race, winning over an enemy is probably giving you the most rewarding feeling. It says "you are better than them". Who could not be intrigued by that? Many early games have as goal of all goals to defeat evil and safe the world. That seems like a good and rewarding task, no matter if Mario saves his Princess from Bowser or Link saves Hyrule from Ganon.

And well, this game mechanic has proven to be successful, and while I think it would definately be interesting to see more game concepts without defeating foes, I think it will never be as popular.

So yeah, it's not necessary, but still one of the most popular themes.

I saw that already, I guess you are right about why it's satisfying, but I feel like people would get more satisfaction from having something different from everything else on the market. This post did get me thinking about different ways games try to psychologically satisfy a player. Definitely an interesting topic, I may have to write something about that.

@Hunter5024:

Well I already told MistaSparkle what my take on the combat scenario is, might as well repeat myself :D

The reason why defeating an enemy is one of the most basic and most used game mechanics could probably be found in psychology. My take on that would be something like, well, for someone to play a game they need motivation, the feeling of accomplishing something. Very basically defined as "winning". From all the things you can win, from a puzzle to a race, winning over an enemy is probably giving you the most rewarding feeling. It says "you are better than them". Who could not be intrigued by that? Many early games have as goal of all goals to defeat evil and safe the world. That seems like a good and rewarding task, no matter if Mario saves his Princess from Bowser or Link saves Hyrule from Ganon.

And well, this game mechanic has proven to be successful, and while I think it would definately be interesting to see more game concepts without defeating foes, I think it will never be as popular.

So yeah, it's not necessary, but still one of the most popular themes.

@Morrow said:

@Hunter5024 said:

I think your post was a cop out because instead of listing games that had actually no violence, you decided games with violence that wasn't like gore didnt count. Personally I think you could have any genre without violence, a shotter does not necessarily mean you must harm someone with the thing your pointing at them. Maybe its some scifi shooter where your shooting plants and animals to evolve them to traverse the environment or something. I'd love to see a shooter like that, or an rpg that replaces battles with something else entirely. Really just anything thats a bit more imaginative would be cool.

No I didn't, my definition of "violence" was just different than yours. Simply defeating a foe is not violence in my opinion. I'd list the type of games I mentioned in my post, which would be, as I already said, pretty much every Nintendo game. And I will certainly not do that on 2 am in the morning if every person can simply look them up.

If such games don't qualify for your definition of "no violence" then fine, but for mine they do.

That's fair (also didn't realize it was 2am over there, get some sleep!). I guess to me violence means any form of combat, and I think its kind of lame that so many games rely on this when it's not even something that is inherently necessary to the mechanics. I think it's great that we have our Mortal Kombats, and our Gears of Wars, but it would be cool to see a game like I described too.

I like shooting dudes in the face.

That's my contribution. Good day to you.

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@believer258 said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I would like to see a game that shows that it can be fun without it.

Aww come one, there are SO MANY games without violence that are fun. Don't make me do a list.

Do a list!

I agree with Hunter, here, Morrow. I can't think of many games that don't make the player kill anything ever. Deus Ex and its sequels don't. Even Portal asks you to kill GLaDOS and

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Wheatley.

Well simply killing someone/something does not make a game violent in my opinion. You also kill monsters in Eternal Sonata or Final Fantasy, but these games are hardly considered violent as there is no blood or other graphic content. I don't think you can put the violence tag on every game that involves defeating foes. There are numerous JRPGs that have been enjoyed by a lot of people that never used any blood. Platformers or Jump and Run games, too. Basically pretty much everything that Nintendo did can be considered safe. The Mario or Zelda games are never violent, even though you defeat foes.

So, taking that into account, that list would be quite large.

Cop out Morrow. Cop out. I think there are a ton of adventure games that have no aggression in them whatsoever, then there are racing games, sports games, the sim's (basically any sim type game really), rhythm games, and puzzle games. I'd love to see a list of games in more popular genres without violence in them though, I think it would be very interesting.

Cop out of what? ô.O

There are popular genres like FPS or TPS that probably can't live without violence, otherwise I can't think of a "popular" genre that only has violent installments. What genres are you thinking of?

I think your post was a cop out because instead of listing games that had actually no violence, you decided games with violence that wasn't like gore didnt count. Personally I think you could have any genre without violence, a shotter does not necessarily mean you must harm someone with the thing your pointing at them. Maybe its some scifi shooter where your shooting plants and animals to evolve them to traverse the environment or something. I'd love to see a shooter like that, or an rpg that replaces battles with something else entirely. Really just anything thats a bit more imaginative would be cool.

No I didn't, my definition of "violence" was just different than yours. Simply defeating a foe is not violence in my opinion. I'd list the type of games I mentioned in my post, which would be, as I already said, pretty much every Nintendo game. And I will certainly not do that on 2 am in the morning if every person can simply look them up.

If such games don't qualify for your definition of "no violence" then fine, but for mine they do.

@MistaSparkle said:

@Morrow said:

Wheatley.

Well simply killing someone/something does not make a game violent in my opinion. You also kill monsters in Eternal Sonata or Final Fantasy, but these games are hardly considered violent as there is no blood or other graphic content. I don't think you can put the violence tag on every game that involves defeating foes. There are numerous JRPGs that have been enjoyed by a lot of people that never used any blood. Platformers or Jump and Run games, too. Basically pretty much everything that Nintendo did can be considered safe. The Mario or Zelda games are never violent, even though you defeat foes.

So, taking that into account, that list would be quite large.

But that's the part that I have a problem with. I think games can benefit from not relying on "defeating enemies" as a gameplay mechanic. It's not that they are violent at all that bothers me, the mechanic of defeating some enemy is really overused. Thanks by the way for helping me put what I'm trying to convey in better terms.

Hm, well I see that the definition of violence can vary depending on one's personal views.

The reason why defeating an enemy is one of the most basic and most used game mechanics could probably be found in psychology. My take on that would be something like, well, for someone to play a game they need motivation, the feeling of accomplishing something. Very basically defined as "winning". From all the things you can win, from a puzzle to a race, winning over an enemy is probably giving you the most rewarding feeling. It says "you are better than them". Who could not be intrigued by that? Many early games have as goal of all goals to defeat evil and safe the world. That seems like a good and rewarding task, no matter if Mario saves his Princess from Bowser or Link saves Hyrule from Ganon.

And well, this game mechanic has proven to be successful, and while I think it would definately be interesting to see more game concepts without defeating foes, I think it will never be as popular.

@Morrow said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@believer258 said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I would like to see a game that shows that it can be fun without it.

Aww come one, there are SO MANY games without violence that are fun. Don't make me do a list.

Do a list!

I agree with Hunter, here, Morrow. I can't think of many games that don't make the player kill anything ever. Deus Ex and its sequels don't. Even Portal asks you to kill GLaDOS and

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Wheatley.

Well simply killing someone/something does not make a game violent in my opinion. You also kill monsters in Eternal Sonata or Final Fantasy, but these games are hardly considered violent as there is no blood or other graphic content. I don't think you can put the violence tag on every game that involves defeating foes. There are numerous JRPGs that have been enjoyed by a lot of people that never used any blood. Platformers or Jump and Run games, too. Basically pretty much everything that Nintendo did can be considered safe. The Mario or Zelda games are never violent, even though you defeat foes.

So, taking that into account, that list would be quite large.

Cop out Morrow. Cop out. I think there are a ton of adventure games that have no aggression in them whatsoever, then there are racing games, sports games, the sim's (basically any sim type game really), rhythm games, and puzzle games. I'd love to see a list of games in more popular genres without violence in them though, I think it would be very interesting.

Cop out of what? ô.O

There are popular genres like FPS or TPS that probably can't live without violence, otherwise I can't think of a "popular" genre that only has violent installments. What genres are you thinking of?

I think your post was a cop out because instead of listing games that had actually no violence, you decided games with violence that wasn't like gore didnt count. Personally I think you could have any genre without violence, a shotter does not necessarily mean you must harm someone with the thing your pointing at them. Maybe its some scifi shooter where your shooting plants and animals to evolve them to traverse the environment or something. I'd love to see a shooter like that, or an rpg that replaces battles with something else entirely. Really just anything thats a bit more imaginative would be cool.

@Morrow said:

Wheatley.

Well simply killing someone/something does not make a game violent in my opinion. You also kill monsters in Eternal Sonata or Final Fantasy, but these games are hardly considered violent as there is no blood or other graphic content. I don't think you can put the violence tag on every game that involves defeating foes. There are numerous JRPGs that have been enjoyed by a lot of people that never used any blood. Platformers or Jump and Run games, too. Basically pretty much everything that Nintendo did can be considered safe. The Mario or Zelda games are never violent, even though you defeat foes.

So, taking that into account, that list would be quite large.

But that's the part that I have a problem with. I think games can benefit from not relying on "defeating enemies" as a gameplay mechanic. It's not that they are violent at all that bothers me, the mechanic of defeating some enemy is really overused. Thanks by the way for helping me put what I'm trying to convey in better terms.

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@believer258 said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I would like to see a game that shows that it can be fun without it.

Aww come one, there are SO MANY games without violence that are fun. Don't make me do a list.

Do a list!

I agree with Hunter, here, Morrow. I can't think of many games that don't make the player kill anything ever. Deus Ex and its sequels don't. Even Portal asks you to kill GLaDOS and

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Wheatley.

Well simply killing someone/something does not make a game violent in my opinion. You also kill monsters in Eternal Sonata or Final Fantasy, but these games are hardly considered violent as there is no blood or other graphic content. I don't think you can put the violence tag on every game that involves defeating foes. There are numerous JRPGs that have been enjoyed by a lot of people that never used any blood. Platformers or Jump and Run games, too. Basically pretty much everything that Nintendo did can be considered safe. The Mario or Zelda games are never violent, even though you defeat foes.

So, taking that into account, that list would be quite large.

Cop out Morrow. Cop out. I think there are a ton of adventure games that have no aggression in them whatsoever, then there are racing games, sports games, the sim's (basically any sim type game really), rhythm games, and puzzle games. I'd love to see a list of games in more popular genres without violence in them though, I think it would be very interesting.

Cop out of what? ô.O

There are popular genres like FPS or TPS that probably can't live without violence, otherwise I can't think of a "popular" genre that only has violent installments. What genres are you thinking of?

@Morrow said:

@believer258 said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I would like to see a game that shows that it can be fun without it.

Aww come one, there are SO MANY games without violence that are fun. Don't make me do a list.

Do a list!

I agree with Hunter, here, Morrow. I can't think of many games that don't make the player kill anything ever. Deus Ex and its sequels don't. Even Portal asks you to kill GLaDOS and

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Wheatley.

Well simply killing someone/something does not make a game violent in my opinion. You also kill monsters in Eternal Sonata or Final Fantasy, but these games are hardly considered violent as there is no blood or other graphic content. I don't think you can put the violence tag on every game that involves defeating foes. There are numerous JRPGs that have been enjoyed by a lot of people that never used any blood. Platformers or Jump and Run games, too. Basically pretty much everything that Nintendo did can be considered safe. The Mario or Zelda games are never violent, even though you defeat foes.

So, taking that into account, that list would be quite large.

Cop out Morrow. Cop out. I think there are a ton of adventure games that have no aggression in them whatsoever, then there are racing games, sports games, the sim's (basically any sim type game really), rhythm games, and puzzle games. I'd love to see a list of games in more popular genres without violence in them though, I think it would be very interesting.

i love my violent video games. most games i own have alot of violence in them. i understand they are just video games. not my fault or responsibility if some crazy dipshit with mental issues goes all wacko because of being exposed to them.

@believer258 said:

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I would like to see a game that shows that it can be fun without it.

Aww come one, there are SO MANY games without violence that are fun. Don't make me do a list.

Do a list!

I agree with Hunter, here, Morrow. I can't think of many games that don't make the player kill anything ever. Deus Ex and its sequels don't. Even Portal asks you to kill GLaDOS and

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

Wheatley.

Well simply killing someone/something does not make a game violent in my opinion. You also kill monsters in Eternal Sonata or Final Fantasy, but these games are hardly considered violent as there is no blood or other graphic content. I don't think you can put the violence tag on every game that involves defeating foes. There are numerous JRPGs that have been enjoyed by a lot of people that never used any blood. Platformers or Jump and Run games, too. Basically pretty much everything that Nintendo did can be considered safe. The Mario or Zelda games are never violent, even though you defeat foes.

So, taking that into account, that list would be quite large.

@Hunter5024 said:

@Morrow said:

@MistaSparkle said:

I would like to see a game that shows that it can be fun without it.

Aww come one, there are SO MANY games without violence that are fun. Don't make me do a list.

Do a list!

I agree with Hunter, here, Morrow. I can't think of many games that don't make the player kill anything ever. Deus Ex and its sequels don't. Even Portal asks you to kill GLaDOS and

@theguy: Good point. Thinking about it, without that characters would be pretty stale, and it would be difficult to determine who the protagonist/antagonist are.

Maybe take verbal and psychological "violence" out of your proposal. It's very hard to define believable characters if there is never any conflict.

@Phatmac: I also am looking forward to what they do with Black Ops 2. I don't hate violent games or anything, I mean Fallout 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. You get to pinpoint exactly which appendage you want to destroy and that's awesome, but there's also some really cool stuff in that game that isn't just shoot these guys to death. My only problem is there isn't enough of that alternative stuff in the game. Almost every mission involves killing someone for an item or going to a new area to find an item but instead its full of deathclaws, and guess what? You have to kill them. How about more missions where I don't have to do that stuff, I'm running low on ammo.

Violence is a very broad term. What I think you should be saying is lets take out the gore and gratuitous violence. I don't think it would matter, honestly. Kids mimic what they see, no what they think it is. Whether its Bugs Bunny, Power Rangers, or the Punisher. Does this mean kids want to kill or hurt people? No, but they are mimicking things they've seen and they think is cool. The same thing goes for things they say. You know (and I hate to admit I was there) how many small children I heard repeat "that guys a pussy" after coming out of the theater for Transformers 2? Quite a bit.

The ocean is full of different kinds of fish. There is no reason why the industry isn't big enough to cater to both sides.

@Vinny_Says said:

@MistaSparkle: I've read that post 3 times and I'm still unsure what you're trying to say. Are you talking about a hypothetical world where violence is no longer allowed in our entertainment? If so why the other 3 paragraphs on random nonsense?

Yeah, sorry, I'm very bad at writing. Especially with more long form stuff... The point I'm trying to make is kind of difficult to explain as well, but let me try one more time right here.

I'm talking about the world just as it is now. All the games that you know that have come out are out. Then, let's just say today, it was ruled that violence in video games is unacceptable and will from now on be banned. Anyone caught making a violent game goes to jail, something crazy like that.

Developers would look at their long lists of games they've made and seriously have to change the way they make their next ones. Taking violence out of most games, popular or not, usually means taking out a very common mechanic. These guys have been putting combat in their games for years because for so long it has been the most popular and easiest way to provide "fun" for the player. It's usually some sort of skill based thing, and people latch on to the idea of kill that guy so I don't get killed pretty quickly because very many games are like that.

Then you see a game like Journey that strips a lot of what you think video games are and shows you a glimpse of what they can be. I guess what I'm saying is that Journey is a great starting point to where I want games to go. Taking the killing out of a game and instead letting you develop a bond with this one person that you share the world with was an incredible and fresh idea that I could totally get behind, and so did a bunch of other people.

It's not violence I have a problem with, its that we keep using it over and over because we know it works.

Thanks for reading this if you took the time to, and I'm sorry if this didn't make any sense either. Hope I didn't waste too much of your time having you reread everything, but I really do appreciate you doing so.

I love non-violent games as much as anyone(I still do a yearly Deus Ex no kill playthrough) I can't help but enjoy big dumb violent video games once in a while. I also know it would piss people of to hear me say that Black Ops 2 is one of my most anticipated games of this year. Black Ops was fantastic you guys!

There are already a lot of games recently that have little to no violence in them ever since the indie game market has become so big. I think this trend will continue and of course we will never have no violence, but there will be a lot more games like Journey, Portal 2, Dear Esther, To the Moon ext in the future.

Compared to other mediums, video games do contain a disproportionate amount of violence--I think that's a difficult point to refute. I think it stems from the simplicity of the act: basic point-and-click shooting is very intuitive and easy to understand. When technology was at its most basic, it was a simple concept to translate into the interactive space. Furthermore, as with any game, video game or otherwise, there needs to be a way to "lose". Death as loss or "game over" is another staple of the industry that is deeply entrenched. We equate loss with death, and victory with killing. The merits of this can be debated until the end of time.

I'll confess that I didn't quite follow your line of argument, but I believe I can tell where you're coming from. Just know that there are several games that contain absolutely zero violence that perform very well at market.

@High_Nunez said:

And we inch ever closer to "Dinner with Andre: The Game".

Considering most of this site grew up with video games, violent or not, I think it is easily observed that it doesn't have earth shattering effects considering we're not homicidal maniacs. I think there are things wrong with the new generation and violence isn't the number one. I think some titles are tasteless in their approaches to violence, but whatever.

@MistaSparkle said:

And, yes, there is something to be said about the competitive aspect of the game, but we need to start moving away from wanting to be the best at holding down a button while keeping our cursor on someone until they lose.

Why ? If people enjoy it, why do we need to move away from it ? Throughout time people have enjoyed competing about plenty of things that are just as (or even more) trivial. Why is this something we have to stop ?

Mr Radchek has something to teach you OP.

@MistaSparkle: I've read that post 3 times and I'm still unsure what you're trying to say. Are you talking about a hypothetical world where violence is no longer allowed in our entertainment? If so why the other 3 paragraphs on random nonsense?

@MistaSparkle said:

I'm very glad you brought Starcraft up because when writing this, I found that RTS games were very adaptable to the loss of violence. We don't need "destroy the enemy player" to be a goal. There should be other ways to win. I don't want to change Starcraft because I know people would be up in arms, but for a new hypothetical RTS coming out, how about we strip the sense that we need to keep buffing up our armies so that at some point we can take the opponent out? Create different win states. Civilization does an excellent job at not forcing you to be the most destructive, as you can win through diplomacy and non violent strategies.

It's been quite a while since I played them, but if I recall correctly Age of Empires 2, Age of Mythology and Empire Earth all had an RTS version of Civilization's culture victory - where you could opt for building a very expensive Wonder building, which would take 5-10 minutes to finish, and if you managed to complete it without being stopped by your enemies (once you started construction, they were all alerted that you were trying to build one) you'd win. Still, the war part was all there, you had to defend the building until it was finished, but it was interesting of them to try to add a victory condition that didn't necessarily mean wiping out your enemies. I think there was some limited diplomacy in the games too, where you could team up and pay tribute to other civilizations during the course of the game, but I don't think you could fully win doing that, as at least one player had to be outside of the team.

As long as it isn't bake cookies game, I wouldn't mind seeing more non-violent games. Like a fun Winnie the Pooh game with Lego style gameplay...that's the game I would have loved to play as a kid. Or games like Epic Mickey, or maybe even a fun Looney Tunes game. BUT I wouldn't want to see violent games to go away either. I do want violence in video games just not God of War levels, make it Lord of the Rings: War in the North level violence at max...God of War is a little to much.