It's funny you mention DICE, because they also made Mirror's Edge. You can literally complete the entire game without firing a single gun. It's all about finding the best route and absorbing the landscape of your world.

Makes you wonder if they'll ever be making that sequel.

While it's true you didn't have to fire a gun, or use violence at all, it was still there. It was depicted and that was enough. It's like they wanted a game with no guns, but at the last second put them in to appease someone.

And yes, I'm hoping for a sequel.

Its as though the industry is satisfied with mediocrity. Each year a new "polished turd" (ie Call of Duty, Battlefield, Medal of Honor) hits the shelves, and each year it makes a load of money signaling to the developers and publishers that "hey, it's okay to keep pumping this garbage out the door because someone will buy it."

It's not entirely the industries fault either. A big part of the responsibility falls on gamers. My gripe is as much with them as it is with developers. We are better than violence, and I feel like there has to be a better way of telling stories. Move on.

I think the problem with videogame violence is the blatant disregard for emotional weight that a real murder would carry. When you can hit a button or click a trigger and extinguish something from existence with ease, it makes killing seem meaningless. The current state is desensitizng and dull.

Developers don't need to necessarily lessen or remove violence, they just have to believably reinforce the consequences of using such means to achieve your ends. There is almost no game that does this on an effective scale. Some games (Mass Effect/Fallout) have dabbled in it, but come nowhere close to portraying it how it needs to be.

Otherwise, I do agree that we need more concepts than just mowing down faceless combatants with fifty calibur bullets. This is where I think the indy and downloadable game space really excels, because they can afford to tackle more imaginative ideas.

The sad truth however is that humans are natrually attracted to conflict, and conflict is a key component to conveying a narrative, and violence is often inherent in conflict.

Besides this: "Journey forces you to play with someone you don't know. You don't know if they're black, white, Asian, or Hispanic; you just don't know. And it doesn't matter. You are left to share in an experience with someone you don't know." Good read. This paragraph could be much more fleshed out, instead it just says the same thing three times. Otherwise, unique take on the particular style of games. I am surprised no one has jumped down your throat with a "if you dont like violence for violence sake, dont play then!!!" and I am glad they haven't. So congrats to you and to Bitmob!
Lastly, the overall sentiment of the article is actually more focused on video games and innovation. In the big business side of things most publishers and developers are having to push out first-person shooters with a ton of violence. However, at a smaller scale, there are many innovative minds that have strayed far from the path. They make you think. The industry will stagnate until the next big thing comes along, as long as these games sell, these games will be made.

Sad, but true.

Coming from a slightly different angle.. I dislike shooters but do not share your opinion on violence. Shooters do have a backdrop and that usually war of any kind. Most of them are designed to make the player feel like a badass hero that takes down a planet's worth of lives. To me, saying that the killing has no contextual value in 99% of the games out there, is a huge overstatement. They do have intricate missions with the usual militaristic requirements soldiers might have to go through and whatnot. I love this quote from Itagaki because it sums up so many things I want to say:

"In the Japanese warrior tradition you would shame an opponent. A real sword expert would aim his slice at the first four fingers of his opponent's sword hand. This would cost a warrior his livelihood and someone suffering this wound would normally commit suicide rather than live without their sword hand. That's what I consider to be real violence." 

This came from an old interview from the time Ninja Gaiden 2 released. There is true violence in this world and games that romanticize these things to the point it's over-the-top and cool are "doing it wrong".

You aren't supposed to think of Rambo's moral decisions because of the nature of Rambo-movies. Unless that's what the director set out to do in the first place (which he didn't). You aren't supposed to expect analyzation of ethical issues in a hack 'n slash action game. The settings are what they are because they excite people and any morally delving angles are simply a refresher to the action genre. Never the dominant part.

To me war is not exciting and shooters are not my cup of tea but I'm a rabid fan of fighting games, another genre with "violence" as their core element. I understand your plea for more innovation and less emphasis on violence, but I think there are a lot of games to fill that need. If anything, I'd say that that need will never exceed the need for adrenaline rush people get from this day's popular genres. Thus, the types of games you wish to see fill most of the store shelves will/might never happen.