Transmedia: Storytelling for the Digital Age

Mixing together video games and collectible toys, Activision? How very Captain Power of you. As many will no doubt remember, the good captain and his soldiers of the future wound up defending clearance aisles from evil until fading into obscurity.

While a set of Angry Birds plushies made it onto this year's Hot Toy list, the only proper video game to make the cut is an Activision game that has Toys"R"Us as a marketing partner.

While at least two of us at Kotaku enjoy Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure enough to recommend a purchase, that doesn't mean we're oblivious to the costly downsides to a game that sells its downloadable content on toy store shelves.

To impress kids these days, it's not enough to make another video game. Mere action figures won't do, either. So Activision is merging the two.

[Children] can play a level, but then they can continue the story in their head, so I think giving them fuel for not just playing the game but to be really engaged in it outside of the game itself is a really key thing.