If there is more to life than combat, why isn't there more to online video games than combat?

Because for the most part that "more to life" stuff is boring, games are one of those things we do to escape the drudgery of that day-to-day stuff. How many people want to play a driving to work MMO? A shopping for the week's groceries MMO? A cleaning the bathroom MMO? Or a sewing MMO? I mean, seriously, I like to sew, but exciting it ain't.

Games and contests are invariably at their base a form of combat for a reason. Chess is hardly pacifistic, nor is checkers, and five card stud is probably rivaled only by marriage when it comes to causing gunfights.

Competition is combat.

Our games are invariably competitive.

A game sans competition isn't a game.

That doesn't mean all games have to be about killing ten bears per level, but an MMO without combat would be like a game of chess without the ability to capture an opponent's pieces -- boring and pointless.