LEGO Dimensions

book User's Guides to Popular Culture How to Play Video Games

by Derek Johnson

Abstract: Giving players control over characters from many different media franchises, the toys-to-life game LEGO Dimensions marshaled a complex structure of co-branded relationships and licensing agreements across entertainment industries and modes of digital and material experiences. That industrial conjuncture, argues Derek Johnson, produced a game most centrally concerned with the mediating power of LEGO in entertainment licensing where the mechanics of interchangeable, articulated LEGO play provided the in-game means of transcending boundaries of intellectual property ownership.

This essay may be found on page 225 of the printed volume.