The game and show have been pitched as groundbreaking transmedia, thanks to how they have been designed to complement each other and build out the world of its characters. And digging into the way both elements have been created to co-exist, it’s hard to deny the potential in the approach.

Syfy and game company Trion Worlds began collaborating on Defiance in 2008, when parent company NBC Universal made an investment in Trion and the two sides began discussing how they might work together.

“We definitely knew that we wanted to create something that would live beyond the television screen, something that would live in different platforms,” Syfy head of original content Mark Stern said, adding:

“But the pilots we were showing them were’t helpful to them from a game perspective, so we really had to start with the ground up. We started trading ideas back and forth until we came up with the concept for this world that was really interesting to both of us, and went from there.”

The biggest challenge, according to Nick Beliaeff, senior VP of development at Trion Worlds, was Trion and Syfy learning to work outside of their normal pattern. For example, he said, “We needed to know in 2010 who they cast because we needed to be able to build playable characters. But at that time they had just one writer on, no production staff — not even the people who would do makeup and costume design.”

The collaboration came together, though: Five years later, the result is a sprawling game universe populated by at least a half dozen alien races, and a series headlined by a cast including Grant Bowler, Julie Benz, Mia Kirshner and Fionnula Flanagan.

“There’s no question that having this very rich, diverse and deep world and mythology, part of the requisite for the game in particular, was really helpful for the series,” Stern said. “There are details that have been worked out that you would never have had the chance to do with a normal show.”

A few examples of how the show and game work together (it’s hard to detail exactly how the game and show work together without some minor spoilers, so apologies): In the opening minutes of the pilot, we meet Nolan (Bowler) and Irisa (Stephanie Leonidas), who have obtained a strange gem — a gem you helped them acquire in the game, as one of the very first missions.

Also, one episode of the show will end with a virus outbreak — over the following week, players of the game will be able to create a vaccine. And one character will be first introduced on the show, then will escape to the game world mid-way through the season.

Plot points like these, plus details like wardrobe, character design and music (the latter of which was created for both experiences by Battlestar Galactica composer Bear McCreary) are meant to blend the two experiences together, rewarding viewers who participate in both: “We’ll alter the game every single time an episode is on the air,” Beliaeff said.

It also, in an interesting twist, rewards those who don’t time-shift their viewing of the show, as game elements are timed to the airing of episodes. “We want to incentivize people — not force them. But if you watch it live while playing the game, you’re going to get more out of it,” Stern said.

Key to keeping the two components separate but collaborative is geography: The show takes place in what was once St. Louis, while players of the game roam around a post-apocalyptic San Francisco.

“We first started out thinking it would be awesome if they took place in the same city — we thought the whole Defiance universe would take place in the Bay Area. But as we developed that idea further, it became problematic,” Beliaeff said. “So we placed them close enough that communication is easy, but travel is difficult.”

Another interesting difference between the game and the show is its rating — while the televised Defiance is in line with Syfy’s other programming (which rarely exceeds a TV-14), the game has been rated Mature for “Blood, Drug Reference, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, and Violence.”

That difference, according to Stern, is by design. “[The show] is going for a broader, older demo, but [the game] is going for a younger and more male-skewed audience,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to pull more of that younger demo into our channel and push older audience into the game.”

That’s the real hope of Defiance — while all of these elements are interesting, the only ones who will really get to enjoy them are those who participate in both parts of the story.

Trion did not provide sales numbers for the game, but Beliaeff did say that they received replenishment orders from Wal-Mart and GameSpot in the first week, and sold out of their Xbox inventory. “We’re smiling,” he added.

It’s now down to Monday night’s television premiere, but either way, Defiance has been a learning experience for both teams. “It’s just been fascinating to see these creative elements cross over and learn what it takes to build an successful interactive MMO. That’s been educational on all sorts of levels,” Stern said. “Not only are we going to be able to use all these elements to launch a potential season two, but we’ll also hopefully be able to apply it to new properties.”

Right now, the writing staff for the show is breaking stories for a potential (not-yet-greenlit) season two, while Trion works to create more content for after the show’s season finale. “We’ll certainly be lighter on our feet with season two than we were with season one. It won’t take us five years,” Stern added.

It’ll take a while to see whether this level of cross-platform storytelling makes Defiance better than your average sci-fi drama. But it definitely makes it bigger.

Disclaimer: I was previously employed by G4, a division of NBC Universal, but had no interaction with Syfy.

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Pottermore at Playstation Home will be available in April. According to an announcement on Pottermore’s blog, “you’ll be able to actually step inside Diagon Alley™ and board the Hogwarts™ Express as an Avatar, and once inside these 3D environments, experience the mayhem of book herding, test your knowledge with a Pottermore quiz, share and collect Trading Cards, and take part in an illicit Wizard’s Duel.”

“Pottermore reaches across multiple digital platforms, and our ongoing partnership with Sony has allowed us to forge this exciting connection with Playstation Home,” Pottermore CEO Charlie Redmayne said in a statement, “creating the most immersive experience possible within that space and giving users wonderful new ways to explore locations from the Harry Potter stories.”

Sony is a Pottermore partner, and last November the companies launched a Harry Potter-themed PS3 game, “Wonderbook: Book of Spells.”

Pottermore launched as a digital bookstore in March 2012 and opened up its interactive features the following month. The most recent available user stats are from October 12, when Redmayne said at the Publishers Launch Conference in Frankfurt that the site had 36 million unique users.

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PlayStation Network executive producer of original programming Kevin Furuichi told me during a phone conversation last week that The Tester’s third season, which begins this Tuesday, will for the first time be available for streaming on the web as well, which should result in even bigger viewership numbers. “We are really excited that we are able to deliver an audience,” Furuichi told me.

Check out the trailer below:

The Tester has twelve gamers competing in challenges that look like a mixture of Fear Factor and real-life video games, and the winner will get a job as a Production Associate in Sony’s Santa Monica video game development studio. Furuichi told me that his team initially tried to make The Tester look more like a web series, with shorter, snack-sized episodes. But the audience actually wanted to see more, so now the show is running half an hour per episode, much like a traditional TV show. Furuichi readily admitted that Sony learned some things from traditional TV production for The Tester: “It is not about changing reality TV,” he said.

So why does Sony produce original programming like The Tester for its PlayStation Network audience? It obviously works well as branded entertainment; the contestants regularly get to try out new Sony game titles, and even meet a few game industry legends. But Furuichi also said that it’s about adding value to the PlayStation Network in general. “It brings people into the network,” he told me.

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While playing games on a touchscreen certainly works, support for the Xperia’s Play hardware game buttons is a smart move by OnLive. The handset may not be the most popular Android handset available, but for hardcore gamers and fans of the PlayStation Portable, it’s a nice compromise between capable smartphone and portable game machine. I’m actually surprised that OnLive didn’t launch with such support for the Xperia Play when it released its Google Android app earlier this month.

For those not familiar, OnLive is a cloud gaming service currently available for Windows PCs, Mac OS X and, most recently, Google Android smartphones and tablets. The games are played on servers in the cloud and displayed on the host computer or mobile device. Essentially, gamers can get a console experience on a smartphone because the games run on a high-powered server.

I’ve played some OnLive games on my Galaxy Nexus and it works well, provided you have a solid, stable web connection. However, I’m not a huge fan of playing complex console titles on a touchscreen: They often require multiple buttons and controls, which can be difficult to use on a small screen.

That’s where the Xperia Play hardware support comes into play. And OnLive also has a game controller, similar to one you’d use with an Xbox 360. I’ve been testing one out along with a beta version of the OnLive client for Apple’s iPad, so stay tuned for a video review coming soon.

While I finalize my review, you can try the OnLive service with a holiday special. Between Dec. 28 and Jan. 1, OnLive is having a “Winter Three-For-All” promotion with free gaming hours and prizes; titles will include Borderlands, Super Street Fighter IV, and Saints Row: The Third.

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In a message on its PlayStation blog, Sony’s chief security executive warned that hackers had broken into 93,000 customer accounts that contain information like names and credit-card information. Sony believes hackers did this by trying to log in to its network using information stolen from a third party:

We want to let you know that we have detected attempts … to test a massive set of sign-in IDs and passwords against our network database. These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources.

The post goes on to say that only 0.1% of customer accounts were compromised by the attack and that Sony was able to lock most of the hacked accounts in a short time. This is the second time in six months that hackers have broken into Sony’s PlayStation network, which consists of millions of video game enthusiasts who supply their credit-card information in order to participate in online game activities.

Sony’s quick warning differs from what took place after the April attack. On that occasion, which resulted in the large scale theft of customers’ email and credit-card information, Sony was blasted for taking up to seven days to disclose that an attack had even taken place and for failing to encrypt credit card data. It is facing a class action suit in the U.S. for failing to warn its customers and is in a fight with its insurer over who should pay for liabilities stemming from “the largest identity theft in history.”

This time, Sony’s clear and timely warning led customers to post dozens of grateful comments like “Thanks for the heads up Sony (NYSE: SNE). Well done. Bravo!” and “Awesome catch. I’m glad to see you guys really stepped up your response time and over all security.” Some of these comments may have been posted by Sony’s own employees, but overall the tone is markedly different than the universal criticism the company faced in April.

The response to Sony’s quick disclosure of the attack seems to vindicate the “come clean quick” approach to customer privacy issues. Of course, not everyone thinks transparency is enough. Other comments on Sony’s site include, “I feel like they are sugar coating and trying to make 93,000 accounts being compromised seem fine and acceptable” and “Come on guys, this is getting old.” A third group of commentators simply fretted that they would not be able to play video games while Sony fixed the problem.

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