Book Review: Burrill, Derek. 2008. Die tryin’: videogames, masculinity, culture. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. isbn 978-1-4331-0242-4 (hardcover), isbn 978-1-4331-0091-8 (paperback).

Die tryin’: videogames, masculinity, culture is the 18th volume of the series Popular Culture – Everyday Life and is a reference book for readers interested in researching the interface between gender, videogaming and digital cultures. In contrast to other titles in the field focused on games research, the author crafts, with intelligible style, experiences of game playing combined with what he calls haptic theory (a materialist, political and metaphorical relationship of player to game). This approach is used to reveal how games function as cultural phenomena where through a visual/virtual medium, a game works as a game. The book is in five chapters. What follows is a brief overview that highlights the breadth of contexts and situations where masculinity is expressed and where males could survive or ‘die tryin’ manifesting boyhood.