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 My family and I spent the holiday weekend playing Apples to Apples, a board game in which players are holding a handful of descriptive cards to play against a word card held by a "judge". A basic strategy of the game is to "play to the judge". In other words, to lay a card that you think the judge will agree describes the word they hold.
On one of my turns at judge, I held the word "violent". The cards laid were hockey, the CIA, and video games. Obviously, someone wasn't playing to the judge. Nonetheless, an argument ensued in favor of the connection between video games and violence.
Since we had spent the afternoon checking traffic and causing spectacular damage in Burnout Revenge, I was hard-pressed to immediately list games that were not violent.
This brings me to the point. Obviously, it would be incorrect, or at least inaccurate, to state whole-heartedly that video games are not violent. One does not have to stretch in the least to list a host of games across several genres which could be considered violent.
Many games hold ESRB ratings that note the violence. Indeed, even the "E" Rating allows for mild violence. The problem is that we do have to stretch to list, and occasionally describe to others, games that are not violent.
The problem lies in the perception of games and the games industry as being violent and, possibly unnecessary. It's so much larger than a simple question of "Are video games violent?". Knee-jerk reactions against the industry for violence and for, basically, a lack of redeeming qualities, are rampant. But, while many articles have been written on the benefits of gaming, it still seems that we, as an industry, lack a return knee-jerk response.
 Everyone knows that video games improve eye-hand coordination. Most people are aware that video games challenge the imagination. Less well-known are the benefits of gaming in staving off the symptoms of Alzheimer's and dementia.
Some of the general public are completley unaware of the creative aspects of gaming such as level design in LittleBigPlanet, creature creation in Spore, and modding in games such as Neverwinter Nights and Unreal Tournament. Newer in the public eye are fan art and Machinima.
Games and gaming communities inspire learning. Teachers would be hard-pressed to find better methods to teach statistics, discovery, esoteric knowledge and resource management than the methods used in forums, walk-throughs and fan-driven wiki's. Co-op play and online play improve social skills.
Improvements in localization increase cultural awareness and accountability. Gamers must balance resources, think creatively, problem-solve, be persistent, learn patience, improve timing, focus, and make decisions. Often, they are required to play decisively and quickly at the same time.
We all know this. These are skills we bring into our every day world. We know there is more than one way to do things and because we already think creatively on a regular basis, solutions are often easier to see. We don't quit. We don't expect immediate gratification.
The point is not that video games are not violent. Some of them are. Some, not all. Placing all games under a stereotypical umbrella of being violent allows society as a whole to put blinders on regarding the positive aspects of gaming.
Because games are perceived as violent, we, as both players and developers, fail to improve public perception no matter how many articles we write on the benefits of gaming. We are the ambassadors of gaming. It is up to us, as a whole, to show the world a view beyond BFG's and glorious destruction.
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Another stereotype is that violent games are for men, while games like Flower and Little Big Planet are for girls and women. Even worse, girls are often given shallow games like Barbie or Cake Mania by well meaning, but clueless relatives.
In a similar fashion, the entire concept of "violence" is a cultural variable. For example, full contact fighting games (electronic versions, anyway) were born in Japan, with Street Fighter II being a classic example with worldwide success. In various non-Japanese markets, the content of such games is perceived to be violent, but it is not necessarily seen the same way in its native market, at least not by the vast majority of consumers and members of the general public. However, Mortal Kombat failed miserably when it was taken from America to Japan, largely due to the explicit violence and killing (fatality moves). There are differences in perceptions about what is violence, as well as what is acceptable violence, within forms of competition.
This is also true for other forms of entertainment, of course, as well as other types of content such as sexuality. After all, young Japanese girls can easily obtain yaoi and shounen ai (boy love) material that would raise a great deal of outcry in many other markets as being far too sexual, and likewise for young boys obtaining similar material regarding female sexuality (often created by women for a male audience, unlike the former example).
I agree with David Wesley's point about so-called "girl games", and so have various other scholars, as well as many female consumers and gamers. At the same time, I'd like to offer two related points to consider. One is that companies offer what sells, and even though some people may feel that certain games are "shallow," many such titles that are panned by certain segments of the market actually sell very well, thus encouraging companies to continue to target specific types of products for specific consumer demographic segments. In addition, it would probably be better for us to recognize that it isn't so much that girls are being offered specific products regardless of any explicit marketing attempts by companies, but rather that the market as a whole is offered products. For example, many males happen to love female-targeted romances, while many females enjoy male-targeted action stories. Plenty of guys love Marmalade Boy, for example, while plenty of girls enjoy Dragon Ball. Konami's Tokimeki Memorial was targeted for males when it came out over 10 years ago, but many girls loved the game, too. A similar observation can be made in reverse for Koei's Angelique franchise. The intention of companies doesn't really matter once a product is offered because people will follow whatever they want, even if they must deal with a certain amount of pressure from social conventions to do so. The same is true for other specific ideas - for example, plenty of boys prefer pink and many girls prefer blue regardless of stereotypes about color preference from birth onwards.
The main problem is that companies of any kind need a return on investment, and this leads them to try to stereotype and categorize people using many types of generalities. Scholars can fall prey to this fallacy, too. However, if people would actually think about the issue, they might realize that in many cases generalities do not hold for any specific individual or group. The general perception and statement, "Video games are violent" is absolutely false because there are millions of examples to counter it. Likewise, the generalized claim that "Video games are not violent" is at best inaccurate. Actually, such perceptions are subjective to each individual, and each individual must decide if anything, video games or other products, has content that that individual feels is "too violent" or "too sexual" or "too funny" or "too sad" or whatever.
Most importantly, we need to push back on the ignorant misperception, created by politicians and their fellow miscreants, that video games with virtual violence cause violence. Nobody is more adept at causing real violence in the world than politicians. Case in point, Sen. Joe Liberman, who would like to bomb and blow-up the rest of the world, seems to have taken a self-righteous stance against virtual violence----possibly old Joe has not played enough violent games???
To re-iterate, defending the gaming industry as an art-form/entertainment/educational experience is our responsibility. We also need to 'stand tall' against the arrogant and ignorant postulations of professional politicians whose ulterior motives are without social merit, and in Sen. Joe's case, devious and pathologically suspect.