How do you you feel about splatter effects and flying bodyparts in games, or about showing explicit violence in games in general? Not only from the developer's view, but also from a gamer's view.
Do you think it's needed for an intense, realistic game experience?

depends...if it's some realistic WW2 fps game then yes, i'd like to have all brutal parts included, but also i'd like to have an option to disable it if someone younger in my family wants to play that game but the content is not for his age.

no its not needed, simple and if your gonna do it dont make it happen the exact same way, something from my design doc:

-enable gore effects randomly, meaning, out of every 20 headshots, only once may you actually see gore effects such as the head flying off, this way, the gore doesnt get old quick and inspires more awe moments.
-reduce gore to close ranged attacks, popping someones head off in closerange by a noscope snipershot is obviously more rewarding than doing it 50 meters away

gore doesnt make the GUNplay better, its just a reward...

anyways, just my 5cents

The answer is very simple. what gameplay do you focus? If you make a very fast shooting game like dark - splatter should be just a very intense p a r t of the game.

If you make a slow rocknroll zombie game like me - splatter is the main part of it.

I am very big fan of the postal games from running with scissors. If I would not see the expected high end violence - i would not play postal.

I am also a big fan of call of duty.
From this point of view, I expect loud shooting fx, big and dramatic scenes. Splatter is a part of cod - but not the main.
And so - the scenes are in the background but included.

What I think is interesting that CoD does exactly what darkinferno meant: There is blood, yes, but real gore effects can only be seen if you perform a headshot.
But you're right, in a zombie game like yours, splatter is very important. But don't make it too much; I generally think it's good to have an option to modifie the bloodyness.

the point is... if EVERYTIME you shoot an head.. it pops, it just becomes a part of the game... now, if out of 50 headshots, only once do you pop the head, people will be surprised, they'll wonder what they did and they'll play over and over again trying to redo it... once you dont make it obvious that you programmed it to be random...

Well, yes, that's true...
But with gore, I meant just those blood splatters on the walls.

I go not the random way.
Exploding heads are only possible with the right hard weapon,like the sniper - and - if the player is in the correct range to the zombie. So the splatter on the wall is only possible, if the zombie is in a short range to a wall and the bullet is fast enough to pass through the head. The splatter on the view is also only possible in direct range to the enemy. Sure, I only make phantasie calculations with variables, which I think, they could be correct.

The only action, the player will see everytime is much much blood

Since I to am working on a FPS zombie game head explosions, arm and leg detachment are a big part. That's one reason there is a rating system in place today. I'd opt for blood and violence over explicit sex and swearing, (swearing in respect to sexual references). Splatter and gore effects really are game specific; Super Mario Bros. for example should not contain such effects; Valve's Left4Dead a must.

Well, having splatter effects in Super Mario titles indeed would be a bit too much for all these 6-year olds...