Lego MMO will "bring that dream alive"

Developer Netdevil's director of business development, Mark Hansen, has said that the core driving factor behind Lego getting into the MMO space with Lego Universe is to "bring alive" children's Lego fantasies. That and making a metric truckload of money, obviously.

"What's really unique now is that the technology is at a level where we can get more than just a single child into a single-player game," he said. "Now we're looking at getting a mass of children into an area to play and interact with Lego. One reason for that is simply consumer demand – kids have been asking us about playing online with Lego and their friends. They see the space and the technology – things like Club Penguin – and they want something like that. We see the uniqueness of building a massively multiplayer online game to add on value to the physical product that we have. When the child sits and plays on the floor with an army and a castle and his Lego knights – that's what we want to bring to the MMO experience, what's in the child's mind. It needs to be alive, we can bring that dream alive."

Lego Universe has no release date as yet, but a trailer's planned for this year, apparently. The game is to feature innovations such as being able to build anything from Lego in the game then ordering the exact Lego kit online.