Something comes to mind, it's from my own creation of Reina Beaumont, when it comes to violence –

"Violence is the nature of humanity, more so in males, due to several factors – defence, hatred, power, wealth, sex and/or general hostility. The day that humans learn to control their urge for violence is the day when they learn the true meaning of peace. And that is something that they are unlikely to learn as long as violence is encouraged and promoted by those who profit from it"

Violence. It is such a large part of the human equation. For centuries men, and yes it has been mostly males throughout history who are behind much of the violence of our history, although there have been some women who have been just as capable as men when it comes to smashing heads in.

Usually it comes down to the aggressive feelings that testosterone can create, leading to wars, fights and other forms of violence from domestic to global. The urge for violence is a very hard urge for many to control and in this day and age violence sells.

It isn't hard to see how much violence is promoted within the media, from a lot of action movies to video games and more. Aggressive can feel good to those who are causing it, it acts as a stress release for them and in turn makes very big profits from those who profit from the human urge to kill.

However violence is not all we are capable of, if it were then the human race would have wiped itself out centuries ago in some meaningless war of manly pride and posturing for no reason other than to scratch the itch of violence within their hearts.

Humans are capable of peace and cooperation should they wish to, and to be honest when you consider the nature of the world today then it wouldn't hurt if the human race learned to control themselves before we end up with a real life enactment of the Fallout series.

But this wee blog/article/whatever isn't about that.

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As stated before, violence sells. And in video games violence is a large part of the industry. From the yearly military FPS rehashes that are churned out to the depiction of violence in trailers and hack and slash titles to other genres, violence makes a lot of money from those who yearn for explosions, gore and the chance to kill as many as possible without the real life legal issues that would come from going on a murder spree.

Publishers and developers know this, and they profit greatly from giving many video gamers the chance to destroy and kill often.

But the constant amount of violence in the industry does get pretty boring if it's all you are doing all the time without any change of pace. There are only so many times you can throw a timed explosive charge on someone, watch them run into a mass of people and detonate for a messy explosion, or shoot people in the head before you find it all ho hum and hum drum.

That's where less violent games come in, games that aren't about violence and killing, but about more peaceful things.

However non-violent games aren't exactly in abundance when you compare that to the number of games that are more violence focused. A game that doesn't allow for constant action and violence is usually seen as 'kiddie' and 'girly' within the gamer community.

It can make it hard for non-violent games to be accepted by many due to that.

The truth of the matter however is that the non-violent games can allow for a more mentally stimulating experience than giving in to the urge to kill.

Games like Tetris, Harvest Moon, A Kingdom/World For Keflings, Viva Pinata – although you do bash Sour Pinatas and other hostiles in with a shovel, Lumines and other games that aren't designed around violence, but solving puzzles or running a farm or raising piñatas or anything that isn't focused on a violent solution can be quite beneficial and an asset for keeping a control over any aggressive feelings that may still be strong after time spent destroying your opponents in any which way.

Consider the Harvest Moon games for example. Those games, for the most part, are focused around the notion of building a farm from humble beginnings. Later games in the series added more to that in the form of falling in love, getting married, raising a family and a story that has you working hard.

Those games are quite peaceful for the most part, they can be calming and relaxing and don't require any violence. They can be highly time consuming and addictive and the chores that may seem mundane and boring can become hard to put down when you are managing your crops, tending your animals, building friendships and pursuing a love interest.

I find them to be a wonderful change of pace after the past several years of violent games. After almost a decade I finally returned to the Harvest Moon series with Harvest Moon DS Cute several hours ago and I was hooked all over again.

I had been, and still am, yearning for a game that wasn't about killing. With all of the sword play, gun play and other forms of violence and action I've been playing in games for so long, it was a wonderful breath of fresh air to put down the weapons and work on a farm.

Viva Pinata is, in a sense, the same kind of concept. Only with that you are mostly focused on raising piñatas. The Pinatas are generally cute, the game is colourful and bright.

Underneath the endearing graphics however is a game that has a steep learning curve and a fair challenge that keeps you on your toes if you want to do well.

Viva Pinata is sadly very underrated since in the eyes of most of the gaming community, the games are 'kiddie' and 'childish'. If I had a child I would be unsure about them playing Viva Pinata due to how cruel it can be with it's challenge. It isn't a game you can just breeze through, the cartoon like graphics are very misleading.

Great games though, well worth playing.

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The Keflings games are another peaceful series. In those you play as a giant – either a pre-made one or your own X-Box Live Avatar – and you build a community.

They aren't hard games, but they can be very time consuming and at points a little demanding. Also the few bits of music in them can get very annoying when they keep looping.

They're fun games and quite cute.

There are other ones but it would take a while to list them all.

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When you compare the amount of non-violent games to the more violent focused games however, it is pretty clear that there are more violence focused games than none.

Violence sells, and likely always will.

It's a shame really, a game like Harvest Moon, or a Harvest Moon game in general, would be a much welcome breath of fresh air on the 360 and PS3, especially the 360 where shooters are in abundance over much of anything else.

While they are mostly on Nintendo systems now, it would be great if Natsume released the series on the 360 and PS3.

But that isn't looking likely as long as violence is seen as more profitable than non-violence. And as long as the view towards non-violent games continues to be one of frankly arrogance from those who regard violence as the by all and end all without considering that non-violence can be important and a change of pace.

Now I think I'm going to return to tending to my farm, I've got some crops waiting to be harvested, some Harvest Sprites to find, a wood shed that should be finished by now and needs filling up with wood and a dog and cat to give cuddles to.

The universe can wait to be saved some other day.

Oh how I love Harvest Moon.