Nelson George, an American author, journalist, filmmaker, and culture critic, is expressing his views on video games.

In Alix Lambert's upcoming book Crime, George compares video games to hip hop culture, which became a mainstream phenomenon in the 1980's and 90's and has remained a huge influence on pop culture to this day.  The Guardian, a UK newspaper, printed an excerpt from the book, in which George expresses his views concerning games.

"Videogames are more important than hip-hop. There's no doubt about it," George asserts in a selected passage.

"The violence and nihilism that everyone thinks is in hip-hop is pumped up about 18 times in videogames. That's really what's driving young male culture, that's really the new rock n' roll... The funny thing about this debate is so many hip-hop critics are fixated on rap and not talking enough about videogames, which aren't a racially determinant form."

No doubt this is just a taste of what the rest of the book will be about.  In order to delve further into George's claims, you'll probably need to pick up a copy June 1, which is available for pre-order if you're actually interested.

It would be unfair to discount the man's arguments right here and now without seeing all the source material first.  It's still pretty tempting though, even if only for the sake of argument.  I mean, hasn't visual media always been a huge influence on pop culture?  And this revelation has already been made by countless conservative watchdog groups (which isn't to say all watchdog groups are conservative), resulting in lawsuits and general protest over video game content and ratings.

Many young men and boys have committed violent crimes, claiming afterwards that "the video game made me do it."  And will the issue of gender be addressed at all, I wonder?  More than likely not, since the idea of female gamers is still such a novelty (despite a rapidly growing demographic), and we're still easily brushed aside.  Because you know, we like to play little pink ponies and other substanceless garba-- I mean games on our Coral Pink DS Lites. 

Now back to the topic at hand.

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Grand Theft Auto could not escape the critic's roving eye, meaning the franchise must also suffer through his intellectual musings.  He brings up Rockstar's strategy of utilizing hip hop culture in their games:

"With videogames the relationship to the culture is different, they're much more like movies. They're a really interesting hybrid. The Grand Theft Auto dudes were all about figuring out how to tap into urban culture. Vidoegames, like movies, take in so many disciplines. At the same time, it's not folk expressions – at least, the way I understand it – of an individual."

Those "Grand Theft Auto dudes" indeed.  It isn't as if they have names or work for a specific company or anything.  Hopefully, there will be ample evidence presented for all of George's eloquent arguments, and Lambert's book won't be reduced to mere pages of editorial filth.