[remixor]

Originally Posted by Phantom

I think you're making a major mistake by saying that most, if not all, important video games of the last few years had violence as their main game mechanic and that we should take a look at the movie industry to improve ourselves.

As you stated, Beyond Good And Evil only relies on violence for about 30% of its gameplay. Knights Of The Old Republic relies on it for about 40%, in my opinion. Dialogue, for example, is just as important in KOTOR as combat. Other RPG's can almost be finished without any combat at all. KOTOR was considered by many (including me) to be by far the best video game of 2003.

Now let's take a loot at the blockbuster movies. Here's the top 10 grossing movies of 2003, according to IMDB:
377,019,252 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
339,714,367 Finding Nemo (2003)
305,388,685 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
281,492,479 The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
242,589,580 Bruce Almighty (2003)
214,948,780 X2 (2003)
173,381,405 Elf (2003)
150,350,192 Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
139,259,759 The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
138,614,544 Cheaper by the Dozen (2003)

Of these movies LOTR, Pirates, Matrix, X2 and Terminator are at least as violent as KOTOR. Finding Nemi is actually a children's movie and shouldn't really be compared to normal videogames but to children video games, which are usually non-violent too. The remaining 3 movies are comedies.

I'm saying all this just to point out that most movies are driven for a large part by violence, just like video games! Of course all movies stated above have a story and characters and they play a big role too, but the same goes for most games nowadays. The time that games relied SOLELY on violence has long gone. The sequel to Doom, which is a perfect example of a game that's 100% violence-based, actually has a good story and a lot of depth, simply because people don't buy games anymore without these elements. GTA has a splendid storyline too.

Movies never lost their violent side or weakened it. The only real exception to the rule I can think of are comedies, and I'm sure the next Larry game will come pretty close to what we expect from a comedy game and looks rather non-violent. Every other genre has at least one murder or some other form of violence/abuse in its story to get everything going. Your statement that games should become less violent to become mainstream is simply not true.

There are plenty of violent movies, but if you think there would be the slightest bit of trouble to go to a video rental store and easily find a nonviolent film you're clearly out of touch. My mom hates violent movies and cringes when she sees violence on screen, but she's never had any problem finding the nonviolent ones (dramas, comedies, whatever) and she hasn't even come close to exhausting the amount of nonviolent films you can find. Saying something like "every other genre [besides comedy] has at least one murder of some other form of violence/abuse in its story to get everything going" is not only incorrect, it's missing the point. Even if a movie has "a murder" somewhere in it, you can't draw a parallel to violent games. If a game only had one murder in it, and that murder was a pivotal point in the story, it would have to be in a cutscene or a scripted scene or at a point in the game that forces you to commit it. If that's all there was, I don't even know if I'd consider it a violent game, at least by the standards I've outlined in my article. Violence in that case wouldn't be the gameplay mechanic, and that's what I've been discussing.
And as far as movies and games both relying on characters, story, and violence, yes this is true in some cases (clearly not all), but when have you seen a game that can compare with a good movie in terms of storytelling? I can think of maybe half a dozen examples in gaming and none of them truly come close to the best examples of storytelling I've seen in movies, with maybe one exception. Violence or no, we've got a long way to go before video games catch up with movies in almost any respect except immersiveness. Once (if) we reach that point, then using violence or not using violence will merely be a content choice rather than being a lynchpin of design.