With the addition of gaming into the brandscape blockbuster narrative, the viewer's relationship to media products is now envisioned as playable, livable, and inhabitable. In 1989, no one walked out of a viewing of Who Framed Roger ­Rabbit thinking they could actually live in the Toontown depicted on screen. But in the intervening years, Disney has developed a number of virtual spaces that aim to immerse its consumers in a Disneyland that doesn't require a physical visit. ­Toontown did come online in 2003, an early experiment by Disney's Virtual Reality Studio to make a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. By 2012, many viewers leaving a screening of Wreck-It Ralph expected that virtual capability. The fictional games in the film were playable online, as were licensed, mobile games that extended the story.

XREF: Connects to the broader shift toward transmedia storytelling and participatory culture, echoing Jenkins's convergence culture arguments. SEED: Could become an essay on how the expectation gap between what audiences demand and what producers initially deliver has widened across media franchises.

Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, loc. 439