Wife of Bath:

the ubiquitous violence on television and in the cinema (and on the news) make you feel there's much to fear all around you

I think there is a point to seperate between different types of violence and fear here. On one hand, the fantasies of power and redemptive violence in most of the examples listed, on the other hand the scary violence in the news, tv and films where someone is out to get you or your kids. All of those american series with deranged psycho sadists hunted by the cops and news reports of kidnapped babies I think is much more likely to induce fear then a violence festival signed Tarantino.

Wife of Bath:

Art imitating life? Life imitating Art?

USA has compared to other countries a really high amount of gun violence. American movies are seen in USA and lots of other countries. So the first one fits better.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

American children watch an average of four hours of television daily.  Television can be a powerful influence in developing value systems and shaping behavior.  Unfortunately, much of today's television programming is violent.  Hundreds of studies of the effects of TV violence on children and teenagers have found that children may:

become "immune" or numb to the horror of violence
gradually accept violence as a way to solve problems
imitate the violence they observe on television; and
identify with certain characters, victims and/or victimizers

Extensive viewing of television violence by children causes greater aggressiveness.  Sometimes, watching a single violent program can increase aggressiveness.

Children who view shows in which violence is very realistic, frequently repeated or unpunished, are more likely to imitate what they see.

 Children with emotional, behavioral, learning or impulse control problems may be more easily influenced by TV violence.

The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in the child's behavior or may surface years later.

Young people can even be affected when the family atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence.

http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_tv_violence

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

Well, advertisers keep the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of such ads a hidden secret. The super Bowl is watched mainly by people who want to buy beer and ride in pickup trucks, so those ads are effective. no one knows why GoDaddy does what it does. I know someone high up Madison Ave. advertising who commented to me that they regularly refer to such ads as Blue Serge suits, after the indestructibly tough suits that men wore day after day in the 1950s. They were so thick that you could pee in them if you had to during a meeting. The joke is that, like the ads, no one else really sees it, but it gives the client a warm feeling.

Huh, hadn't heard about that.
I'm behind the times I see:

The game lingers upon the face of a bloodied victim and with the push of a few buttons you insert a piece of broken glass into his mouth and punch him in the face (watch here).
[...]
In the controversial mission entitled "No Russian," you walk through an airport armed with a set of machine guns, slaughtering hundreds of terrified and screaming civilians. [...] , this mission is central to the storyline of Modern Warfare 2 and gamers aiming to enjoy the full experience of the game are likely to play it anyway (certainly most reviewers opted to play the full game).
[...]
Call of Duty supports the myth that America needs to defend itself against the perpetual threat of foreign tyranny and spontaneous terrorism, and that it is pulled into wars rather than creating them. As Modern Warfare 3 approaches, poised to become the next best-selling game of all time, we can expect a similar, propagandist appeal to warfare: you fight in New York, London, Paris, and Berlin - you are fighting for nothing less than the preservation of the First World way of life.

Things have moved on since I played Wizball.

Well, I'm sure that a lot of progressives would agree with you - in an ideal world, but we're not in an ideal world. Of course a lot of violence is started by the US, the new imperialists; but there is the possibility of a new Hitler - or do you think we shouldn't have fought the Nazis ? A lot of Brits tried to avoid it, which undoubtedly made it so much more difficult later and a "damned close-run thing" (Wellington on Waterloo), even with the Soviets and the Americans.

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

i have noticed this with n. american guests, a particularly silly giggle when seeing gratuitous violence on the screen.

just as important as the film and videogame industries is the war toy syndrome, kids are encouraged to simulate violence from such an early age, it becomes as natural as breathing to expect it everywhere, all the time.

when will we realise how small the window of childhood is, with its brief, unique opportunity to shape character for good?

instead we gleefully raise the odds against it!

i would expect casual violence to continue to grow exponentially as new generations grow up with even more OTT celluloid heroes to emulate.

yet, to put it in perspective, i saw an afghan girl saying how she wanted to go to america, where people don't shoot each other, there is peace.

i wish her luck.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

What! I go away for a few years and you people get lazy and make silly, unsubstantiated claims, and these are then accepted and rec'd. Scandalous! ;)

Ok, I know, you said releases. But, let's look at sales instead. (Because they can be found. And do we really care about games released if no one buys them?)

Shooters are between 20 and 25 %. For some other potentially violent games, add Action, another 12 to 20 %. It probably depends on how the genres are defined. For example, Portal 2 is defined as shooter in the data used for the chart below. Which is kinda weird. The shooter games also seem to include 3rd person shooters. But maybe they should count too if they are violent? Action games include some violent things like Grand Theft Auto IV. This category also includes Skylanders, which is a cartoonish game for kids. So, maybe 25% total for violent games?

I am pretty sure that these are sales in shops, which ignores a huge part of the market that is on-line sales. However, I don't see 75% being even remotely reached.

Numbers are aggregated from here
Slightly different numbers here, but only in aggregate, so we can say nothing about how they have categorized things.

And, finally, an important quote that proves everything:
"It cannot possible be the case that we are influenced by the games we play. Otherwise my whole generation would have spent time running around dark rooms, listening to repetitive music, and eating magic pills."   (source: The Internet)

(Apparently it was a joke by Marcus Brigstocke, it was said slightly differently, and he is annoyed at not getting credited. So lets credit him. Bravo Marcus! Well said!)

US Conservatives vehemently agree seeing one single solitary naked female boob will scar a child for the rest of their life.

US Conservatives vehemently agree seeing 10,000 hours of acts of violence has no affect.

Life in America.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

Had forgot that one.

Luckily the penance for not remembering your Calvin and Hobbes is reading more Calving and Hobbes.