Is this a chess variant? Chess without taking pieces! I just noticed a special style of playing chess in some of the top games in chess.com; A chess without taking pieces:



The whole game here:

[FEN ""]
[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2015.07.09"]
[White "adypady02"]
[Black "Thunder_Penguin"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[WhiteElo "2240"]
[BlackElo "2019"]
[TimeControl "3|0"]
[Termination "Game drawn by agreement"]


1.e4 Nf6 2.Nh3 Nc6 3.Nf4 Nh5 4.Ne6 g5 5.Ba6 Nf4 6.Qe2 Ne5 7.f3 Nh3 8.g4 Ng6 9.d4 Bg7 10.Bf4 f5
 11.Qf2 Nh4 12.Nc3 Kf7 13.Nd5 Bf6 14.Rd1 Re8 15.Rd2 Kg8 16.Kd1 Kh8 17.Kc1 b5 18.Kb1 Bb7 19.Ka1 Kg8 20.Bd6 Kf7
 21.c4 Rg8 22.c5 Qf8 23.c6 Qh6 24.a4 Raf8 25.a5 Ke8 26.b4 Rf7 27.Kb2 1/2-1/2



Is this a chess variant? 
What is its name? 
Is it quite well known?
What's the objective of the game, still checkmating?
Any hints for a winning strategy?


Another games :


game 2
game 3
I followed the profile of Thunder_Penguin in chess.com and found a blog post about this: some  variation.

Ady and I made this.
Rules:
To win, get your king to your two corners (a1 and h1 for White,
h8 and a8 for Black)

You can't capture pieces*
You can't put pieces on the last rank (1st or 8th)
You can't castle*
You can capture if it's mate in 1
You can't control the enemy squares (ie, white can't put a knight on b6)

Let the analysis begin!

So according to this, answers to questions would be:

Is this a chess variant? What is its name? Is it quite well known?

It's a recent attempt to create a variation , made up by the 2 players. not named, not known.

What's the objective of the game, still checkmating?

The objective is not checkmating but escorting the king to one of your side corners following the rules cited.

Any hints for a winning strategy?

I can't answer that.