But the other games do have shooting. This is about guns in games. GTA V isn't a shooter but has shooting and wouldn't be as popular without guns. Same with Watch Dogs.

You don't see games without guns selling more than Witcher 3 which sold six million units outside of game series that have nostalgic fans like Mario, Pokemon and Final Fantasy. Games with guns often sell more than ten million, even more than twenty million is not uncommon for these games.

But thats been the case for a long time. Look at the N64 and PS1. Games like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Resident Evil, Silent Hill etc... I mean even Donkey Kong 64 had guns ffs.

Kids like guns, they're cool. And if you like swords, for every gun based game there's a swordsman in Smash!

Space Invaders is ruining our youth! That Ninja Gaiden is fine but OH MY Galaga is so violent with the shooting!

“AAA games can't afford to take all that many creative risks,” says Cifaldi. “If you've got to sell a game in the millions to break even, then you're going to have to play it safe and stick to genres people immediately recognize.”

I find that to be the biggest issue of all that needs to be dealt with. Guns just happen to be the latest piece of weaponry we've been using for the past few centuries.

Games like Gran Turismo, Crash Bandicoot, Mario and Pokemon were very popular and none of them had nostalgic fans at that time. Shooters were popular but weren't the most popular genre by far like they are now.

This article isn't about violence at all.

Well there are more gamers now than ever, so how are guns in games holding the industry back?

Guns are put into games that don't need them. Watch Dogs 2 could have been a stealth game without any guns and would have been as good but it has guns so that it can sell enough to make a profit. Uncharted has guns and shooting and as I pointed out it feels out of place with the narrative and characterisation of Drake.

Also games like Dishonored have guns where they don't need them. I could add more games to this but you get the point.

You also see so many FPS games because of the popularity of guns in video games. This gen there isn't a single new AAA hack and slash game on PS4 and there are so many shooters. That is because shooters sell.

Too many games that are shooters yeah but there was also to many platformers in the early to mid 90s. Guns are not ruining games. Bad DLC practices increased development costs and lack of new IPs,too many remakes/remasters,unfinished games plus broken buggy games. The only thing really hurting games is the insane corporate greed and people just accepting it and rewarding it.

Well then buy non shooters. The WiiU is full of them.