How many of us also play games that aren't based around killing and beating stuff up?

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I do, and I'm sure most others do too. But mostly my games are about running around killing and smashing a bunch of stuff. And I'm starting to think it's a bit.. well, asinine. But at the same time, it's incredibly fun.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, that it's morally wrong or intellectually inferior. But why are most games like this? I mean good ones, with decent graphics, quality story, good gameplay. I know there are puzzle games and stuff but they're usually budget and aimed at casual audience. I know there are sport games out there but they usually bore me after an hour or so. I know there are platformers like Mario but I doubt anyone would spend so much time with them.

But I don't want a list of recommendations of alternatives, because I have them and know they're out there. I just want to know if we're actually conscious of what we're doing most of the time - inflicting violence on imaginary creatures. Because it seems rather childish and repetitive, not the fact that it exists, but that so many games do it. Sure, Doom was exciting and new. But 20 years of the same? Game after game? And every new generation is the same, but 'improved' in some way. Will gaming be like this forever? A series of variations on ways to inflict death and pain?

Will we ever be able to come up with anything as solid and consistently satisfying as the RPG mechanic of acquiring levels of experience based on how much stuff you kill, or the action model of roaming around surviving while people trying to kill you? Because as fun as it is I don't think there's anything that gaming needs more than viable alternatives.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Games that have a plot need some kind of conflict. Violence is the easiest form of conflict to show visually.

Hell even games that aren't violent have violence in them.

Mario is a platformer, but a big part of it is jumping on enemies and swashing them, thereby killing them.

Catherine is a puzzle game about relationships, but the main character is killed in violent ways if he doesn't make it up the puzzle tower in time, and he knocks others out of the way, killing them, in order to get to the top of the tower.

At the end of Portal you blow up GLaDOS with missiles.

Story is conflict, and it's incredibly difficult to express anything other than physical conflict in terms of gameplay.

 

[Neverhoodian]

Errant Signal shed some light on this issue. Definitely worth a watch:

Basically, video games excel at depicting physical and spatial interactions, and the easiest way to do so tends to be through violence. It's relatively simple to program, easy to grasp for the player, and looks snazzy for marketing purposes. Dealing with nonviolent alternatives like meaningful dialogue tend to be more open-ended and abstract, posing more of a challenge from a technical standpoint.

Also, like it or not, we as a species get a visceral thrill out of violent entertainment. Many of mankind's most popular and well-known stories deal with battles and conflict, from Greco-Roman mythology and Beowulf to modern depictions of superheroes and space marines. This tends to strike a particular chord with younger generations, which are still the primary demographic for the mainstream game industry. You and I may have seen all violence has to offer for the medium, but millions of up-and-coming teens and 20-somethings have not. I'm not trying to diss them for it (I was the same way as a teenager), that's just how it tends to play out. Hell, I still get a rush from playing titles like Team Fortress 2 or Space Marine, even though I've seen it all before countless times.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

I am thinking of all the games I can think of that go a good job of nonviolent gameplay and abstraction seems to be something many have in common. Table Top RPGs, Sim games, Minecraft, Fallen London. Like you don't want to simulate a conversation with words because it will feel repetitive and use a lot of effort, but you could fill out a conversation with images stats and short feelings.

The sims has this thing where when sims talk, they basically flash pictures at each other. Like one sim says sailboat and another sim will say kite and they will talk back and forth like that. The game never tells you exactly what the sims are saying it just gives you the big pictures and lets you fill in what you think it happening. Fallen London also uses abstraction well. In that game you can collect items like whispered secrets, or juicy gossip. What exactly is the gossip the game won't say, but it's juicy. Then you have table top games where the mechanics are still abstracted, but the GM or players are able to fill in the abstration with details.

 

[Grumman]

One of the games I'm playing the most at the moment is Kerbal Space Program. There the only adversaries you must overcome are gravity and momentum.

 

[Strain42]

Does Ace Attorney count? I mean that game is less about killing and/or beating up stuff and more about...y'know...proving our people DIDN'T do the killing and/or beating up.

That aside, a lot of old Sierra adventure titles go for non-violent solutions to their puzzles, which I really liked. I mean yeah, you do kill SOME stuff, but I wouldn't say the games are centered around that.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Well, we'll always have golf and Tetris.

EDIT: And Bejeweled. I love Bejeweled!

 

[FrozenLaughs]

Simcity your only adversary is expansion. Really any Sim games are pretty violence/conflict free.

 

[Reed Spacer]

Simcity your only adversary is expansion. Really any Sim games are pretty violence/conflict free.

Unless you activate the disasters, and honestly who doesn't?

 

[sageoftruth]

Not lately in my case. Not a whole lot of violence was committed by me in Brothers Tale of Two Sons, but even those guys end up having killed an enemy or two by the time the game is over.

 

[Lilani]

I absolutely adore the Professor Layton games, and in slowly getting into the Phoenix Wright games. And I've been meaning to get into Animal Crossing.

 

[lacktheknack]

Myst Online and pacifist runs of Mirror's Edge are my favorite games ever, and I actually play more non-violent games than violent ones.

 

[Arina Love]

Well i also play Japanese VNs (Eroge) they are all about fucking stuff

Seriously tho i mainly play romantic renai VNs because they deliver better romance experience than romantic Anime.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I know there are platformers like Mario but I doubt anyone would spend so much time with them.

Even in Mario you kill shit.

Violence is the easiest and most satisfying way to program interaction within a virtual world. The other problem is that if you try to incorperate too many gameplay mechanics (like ones not based aren't killing), the mechanics themselves are at risk of feeling unrefined, like with Fall-Out and Oblivion.

If a game is action-based it's extremely hard to create a simple set of gameplay mechanics that aren't based on violence and don't become tedious real soon. "Kill-gameplay" has the benefit of pitting you against stronger and stronger enemies and odds.

 

[Guffe]

The FIFA rounds with friends.
NintendoLand with friends.
MarioKart with friends....

So a little yes, most games today have some sort of killing in them but I also played lately stuff like Armillo and Trine2 which have less about that and more about... other stuff. But yeah, most stuff today is about destroying and killing stuff, would like a new Harvest Moon, haven't played that series in ages :/

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Simcity your only adversary is expansion. Really any Sim games are pretty violence/conflict free.

I don't know man. Pretty much everyone I've ever met intentionally drowns or sets fire to their Sims at some point.

 

[CrystalShadow]

It's in the nature of the medium that conflict, especially violent conflict is one of the things it depicts most easily...

This goes back a long, long way. When games were really primitive, what was one of the first things you did? Shoot at a dot.

Something that destroys something else is easier to code, easier to represent, and generally free of complexities.

Imagine trying to code any kind of meaningful non-violent social interaction to any meaningful degree.
It soon becomes incredibly complex.

While 'killing' something amounts to 'rub two objects together, and remove one or both of them'

Unfortunately this seems to be an issue of complexity.

Now, you might say games have come a long way in 30 years, and sure. They have. But what have we focused on? Graphics and sound.

What has largely been neglected? AI. Complex behaviours. We've spent much more time improving how things look than we have trying to develop the more complex behaviours and systems that are needed to make 'non-violent' gameplay anything more than a shallow parody of itself.

I mean, think about having a conversation in a game? What is the most complex system you know of?
And really, how well does it convey even the simplest idea of what having a conversation with another intelligent being is like? Pretty badly, right?

We simply don't have the technology to do anything else easily.

We can create a convincing display of virtual combat, but that's because it's easy to represent, and more peaceful concepts tend to be much more challenging to pull off...

 

[Story]

Yup.

What Neverhoodian and Errant Signal (and a few others) said pretty much sums it up.
I'm not a game designer so I found the Errant Signal video pretty enlightening.

Neverhoodian mentioned that violence sells and appeals to a young demographic. In general that exasperates it too, but Errant Signal said violence also culturally appeals to young males specifically and I have to agree with that. For a long time video games were advertised to men in particular (and still are really). This isn't just true for just games either I'd say, just look at any toy or story marketed towards men and it usually involves overcoming things through violence or growing more powerful to defeat evil (think superheroes).

At the same time, things usually marketed towards women involve friendship, motherhood, or some otherkind of social interaction. This is very true of games as well. I have a theory that this is largely why AAA games don't appeal to women as much as men, but I digress.

As for the question, personally I play games that don't involve killing. I guess it saids something that my least favorite genre is the first person shooter.
I play Animal Crossing everyday and enjoy Puzzel games. My favorite type of games are pet simulators like Neopets and Nintendogs.

Edit:
Oh! And I should say I don't think the status quo will change anytime soon. If only because no huge studio has come up with new and commercially successful games involving non-violent mechanics as it's core gameplay. With the exception I suppose of games based off of physical games (football, chess, ect.) Will always have puzzle games that don't involve violence but the majority of AAA studios, the ones with all the money, will continue to make violent video games as long as they sell.

 

[Snotnarok]

Sonic the Hedgehog

Ah ah! You are not beating things up or killing anything, you break open robots and let flickies loose! It's a mission of mercy I tells ya! Mercy!!

Back to Serious Sam 3 and tearing the hearts out of my foes for funsies.