I love violence, blood and brutality in games. Most games don't even have realistic gore in them . I like that we seem to take the next step with games such as The last of us which had some realistic and brutal violence and I respected that game more for it
(I know Naughty Dog's purpose is intentional in making the player uncomfortable with the realistic cruel violence but I think that just makes it even better. i want to feel uncmfortable. "No russian" didn't move me at all but the Last of us demo did).

I don't think the criticism of God of War (the elephant man) on this basis is fair.

God of War is designed to shock the player with extreme violence. Greek mythology is not a pleasant setting full of rainbows and ponies. It's horrible. It's full of murders and genocides and sexual assault. Trying to sugarcoat it would diminish the setting enormously.

The brain is bordering on obnoxious levels of gore, but again, that's just what the setting is.

Everyone keeps talking about how ALL games focus on intense violence and sexual themes.

And then they all pretend Nintendo doesn't exist.

Everyone keeps talking about how Japanese developers are dying and they haven't produced many significant hits in the last number of years.

And then they all pretend Nintendo doesn't exist.

What the fuck is wrong with this industry?

I agree with this- no matter how many Wii Fits and NSMB games there are, so long as there is an overload of violent games, gaming will never truly be accepted by the mainstream

Yeah, I felt very bad for the poor oliphant but I still think it was cool.

That was still baby violence compared to what developers could make. 3 guys one hammer, now that's ultra-violence that I would be against.

Eh, Hollywood? You are probably so used and blinded to it that you don't even notice the violence that is in every action movie that is made.

I'd say that's more of a problem with society in general. Literature is filled with mature themes and murder ect. Many movies have violence in them. Music has some obscene lyrics. But society accepts all of those mediums. Video games shouldn't be any different. Just because people refuse to look at them with the same eyes they look at music,books, or movies with doesn't mean video games should be blamed.

I think the nature of video games means that it's more likely to be used by children, and the idea that those children can access violence very easily makes a lot of people uncomfortable

I understand where you are comming from. But isn't the average age of a gamer like mid 30's? I'd argue it's up to the parents discretion to buy more mature themed games for their children. It's not like children have jobs and they can go buy whatever they want (they also get their id's checked for mature games). I'd say it's MUCH easier for a kid to turn on a television or even a computer for that matter and see whatever he/she wants to, than get the money necessary to buy the game, get past the clerk who is required to check his or her ID, bring the game home and play it without the parents noticing.

The treatment in movies and books tends to be much more mature* (as in, much less graphic, put in a real world context with the consequences fully shown). Videogames /can/ be 4hr stretches of mindless killing, whereas even the lowest action films tend to use the violence as a storytelling device. Similarly few modern films outright dress all females provocatively and have them be nothing but love interests.

*This word has two exact opposite meanings.