This mentions the killing aspects of games multiple times, and does make me wonder if we can make more games that aren't about overt violence.

I know a lot exist, but it feels like if a game has some "story-ness" to it (so not a God game, but something with a narrative), and it has more than a minimum of mechanics (unlike puzzle/adventure games) , the mechanics end up having to be about violence. Maybe I'm wanting to come to this conclusion