Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Essentially Playing: Considering Gender, Sex and Sexuality in Video Games and Game Scholarship 17 Chapter 2. Builders of Boys, Makers of Men: Examining the Ludic Processes of the Masculine Apprenticeship 45 Chapter 3. "Putting some work in": Masculinity, Labor and Hypo-ludicity 80 Chapter 4. "I am sworn to carry your burdens": Eliminating and Scapegoating Women in Video Games 111 Chapter 5. "Welcome to the family, son": Maligned and Misunderstood Fathers in "Dadified" Video Games 144 Chapter 6. "It's the terror of knowing": Resurrection, Melancholia and the Elegiac Game 178 Afterword 208 Chapter Notes 213 References 217 Index 239