Gore where it is now seems to be very gory, but not near as gory as reality can be.
I think that perhaps if someone were to release a game with fully realistic gore, it could be a way to dissuade people from killing in the game (and maybe in reality.) Current games' gore is such that it is satisfying, but not gross (mostly.) If someone were to see that what they just did made such terrible things happen to a person, and thought it was disgusting, the game would do better at asking "hard questions." Killing people in the game would be a much more regrettable event than in other games. If you saw that your last firefight left some guy lying on the ground in a sickening mess of blood, meat, and death, would you feel alright doing the same to eight other people?
You might not have to worry as much about players just going for the best reward. If a player is genuinely disgusted when he/she kills an NPC, they might not be able to go through with it, even though they get more virtual money or whatever in the end.
I think I would like a game that did this right. The game would, of course, have to be a game in which choosing not to kill is completely viable, but the mechanics wouldn't be too much of a diversion from the original game. Like an FPSRPG or similar.
EDIT: Also, with my idea, if there were an NPC that you knew about. Say, an ally or something, who was able to be killed without a game over, you might try to protect them more, so you don't have to see a friend get their arms blown off or some such. It would be a very mature game, and would definitely not be marketed to kids, but it would be perfect for people (like me) who like to play gritty, mature games like that.
Of course, now we're basing all of our moral questions on just gore, so we'd need more than just that. We'd have to have NPC allies that were totally against killing, or maybe have some NPCs vomit or break down crying at the sight of it and such. It's still based on the death aspect, though. This could work perfectly in a game where you and a group of NPCs have to get from point A to point B, but line AB is a warzone. You could sneak through, which is harder to do, but less disgusting, you could try and find ways around bad bits, which would require you to go through certain places and deal with some killing, but less than the third option, which is to just try and gun your way through. Some NPCs would slowly become less mentally stable throughout the game, until finally just losing it and going catatonic or suicidal. You would have to make sure as many NPCs as possible make it to the end in a healthy state of mind.
