Non-violent games took up twice as much space at this year's E3 (and surrounding events) as they did in 2019. This is according to a recent report from GamesIndustry.biz, which found that 33% of games exhibited over the past week or so were non-violent, up from 17% in 2019.

GamesIndustry's analysis defined "violence" in a specific way, focusing on interpersonal aggression acted out by players. For the purposes of their analysis, murder is (obviously) violent, but being tasked with solving an unseen murder is not necessarily violent. Cartoonish violence, such as disassembling enemies in "Lego Star Wars," is included in violence, as is a slightly more abstract form of violence, such as in strategy games. In other words, we focused on violence as a player's behavior, not as a theme.

The significant increase in non-violent games is largely due to the Wholesome Direct, which took place for the first time in 2020, when E3 did not take place. "Wholesome Games" as a community, something its curators have had to reveal publicly on several occasions, does not necessarily exclude violence by its own definition, but tends to do so. It also includes more than 70 games.

Wholesome Direct, in a Reddit AMA just prior to the first event last year, cited exceptions to the rule definition, such as "a healthy game is not violent if it could be (but Costume Quest is still healthy)." Confirming this, 83% of the games exhibited at Wholesome Direct were classified as non-violent by GamesIndustry.

As for indie showcases in general being non-violent, this was not the case: at 20% of 35 games, Guerrilla Collective's second stream had a similar non-violent to Xbox and Bethesda's showcase (13% of 31 games) ratio.

GamesIndustry states that its data collection is not an attempt to "decry" violence, but to "provide insight into how much of the industry's output depends on selling the same basic mechanics."

Since at least some of the games exhibited are "healthy" violence, it will be interesting to see how the numbers divide in terms of themes as well as what players can do.

The full report can be read at GamesIndustry.biz (as well as those published in 2019).