Video games and murder are like cheese and crackers. Vic and Bob. The Edinburgh Fringe and disgruntled locals. A classic partnership, but hardly inseparable: though our chief interaction with these virtual worlds is to deal death to their residents, it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, there are thousands of video games out there where you aren't compelled to kill anyone. Or stab them. Or even lightly maim them. Farming simulators, for example, where the only thing resembling violence is the application of combine harvester to corn. Relationship simulators, where the only conflict to be found is that between heart and head. Or Assassin's Creed 3, where you tend to just kill British colonisers, which most people agree is fair game.
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