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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The seminal sci-fi drama Battlestar Galactica put the SyFy channel on the map well before it became SyFy. So since the original series ended, efforts have been made to build on that pre-established brand, with the most recent effort, Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome, taking the series back to its space-battle roots.

But while SyFy decided not to go forward with a full series of Blood and Chrome, the two-hour pilot is finding its way to Battlestar fans, beginning with YouTube network Machinima‘s exclusive online premiere, part of a three-tier distribution plan that could become a model for future projects.

Machinima began releasing Blood and Chrome in ten minute installments in November, months in advance of its SyFy television premiere, which is scheduled for February 2013. The first episode is currently at about two million views — subsequent episodes have trailed off, but according to Machinima Prime general manager Ian Moffitt, this is just one stage in the show’s online life.

“We found with Halo: Forward Unto Dawn that once all the episodes are up in a playlist, a whole new audience comes to life,” he said. “That’s the beauty of this platform — we can market and remarket to the fanbase constantly.”

Blood and Chrome, while produced on a TV-level budget, is surprisingly low-budget compared to, say, Machinima’s last high-profiile release, the series Halo: Forward Unto Dawn: Blood and Chrome reportedly cost $2 million, whereas according to the L.A. Times, industry insiders put Forward Unto Dawn‘s budget in the $5-10 million range.

Forward Unto Dawn, of course, was financed by Microsoft and served as part of the lead-up to the release of the game Halo 4 (which made $220 million on its first day).

But Blood and Chrome‘s YouTube release also contains a promotional component, specifically for other iterations of the pilot: Episode end cards on YouTube contain heavy mention of the February SyFy premiere, as well as the upcoming, unrated Blu-ray edition. (On YouTube, Blood and Chrome cuts around potential nudity, and profanity is bleeped by clattering tools and lockers slamming shut.)

Even the original Galactica series’s Google Play release gets a plug. “We consider ourselves not just a distributor but a promotional service — from our point of view, we’re helping them promote the other windows,” Moffitt said.

The series will remain on Machinima Prime until April 2013, but Moffitt said that continuing Blood and Chrome beyond the initial pilot is “definitely an option that everyone wants to believe is on the table. It’s fundamentally down to the creative team, as well as their point of view on where does the story go.”

Blood and Chrome isn’t the first content originally produced for television to find new life online: Just one example from 2009 — the short-lived cable series Pilot Season, which was reborn on My Damn Channel. But it does speak to the potential that lies in adapting to, and not resisting, the new media world order.

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QMx Interactive has some experience at making tie-in apps for media properties that go beyond simple promotion. It’s the team that brought us the Super 8 app, which was so effective as standalone software that I wasn’t even aware it was a cross-promotional effort when I checked it out back in January.

Like Super 8, Farnsworth has a strong video component. That’s because the app takes its name and concept from the Farnsworth device from Warehouse 13, which fans of the show will know is the basic video communication device used by the agents who track down the supernatural objects I mentioned above. The Farnsworth communicators have a retro, steampunk vibe, and the design of the app captures that, as does the grainy, black and white video with a fisheye effect it records.

The app costs 99 cents, which may seem steep to some for a promotional app, but it makes more sense when you realize that QMx has taken things a bit further than most. The Farnsworth app is based on QMx’s own proprietary messaging system, which it plans to roll out in other future apps. That means that you’ll be able to send cross-app video and audio messages from Farnsworth video communicator to other apps that use the same protocol.

Even without cross-app functionality, you can still use the app to send and receive video messages using Wi-Fi, 3G or EDGE network connectivity, and also post video updates directly to Facebook, as well as send them via email. As a tool for non-real-time video and audio communication, Farnsworth communicator could fill a handy niche between something like Skype and your phone’s own voicemail.

Finally, fans are the key audience for this app, and there’s fan service content on board. It ships with two pre-recorded messages from actors in the series, the look, feel and control interface are all as faithful as you’d expect from actual sci-fi prop designers.

The Farnsworth Video Communicator might not develop a groundswell following beyond fans of the show, but QMx is showing that it isn’t interested in making the same old boring tie-ins that often aren’t even worth the time you take to download them.

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I had a chance to talk to CEO Andy Gore at Comic-Con this week about the company’s foray into the mobile space and got a sneak peek at some upcoming surprises QMx has in store for sci-fi fans.

Gore noted that with the Super 8 app, both QMx and production company Bad Robot wanted the same thing: an app that could stand alone. The goal was to make something useful, not a simple tie-in app that users would download and quickly discard.

He said the company wanted to up the experience from the Super 8 app, and it may have done just that; he gave me an exclusive peek at a demo tie-in for the popular SyFy series Warehouse 13. Designed for iOS devices from the iPhone 3GS and up, the app will turn the device into a Farnsworth look-alike, the steampunk-ish audio-visual communications device well-known to fans of the show. Users can record messages and send them to one another just like the characters on the show.

QMx has a reputation with sci-fi and fantasy fans as creators of replicas with an incredible attention to detail, and it was apparent in the demo Gore showed me. He said:

If we can make an app that makes video communication useful and ties in the property, then we’ve achieved our goal. The Warehouse 13 people have been great to work with. It’s important to work with a company who is just as enthusiastic as we are about the app and the show or movie it’s tied to.

As with the Super 8 app, Gore promises undocumented features that are sure to delight fans of the show.

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The main purpose of Engler’s post was to clear up some misconceptions:

“When sci-fi TV shows gets canceled (on any network), many fans talk about how the ratings system is broken and doesn’t count sci-fi viewers correctly. After all, sci-fi fans are tech-savvy and don’t watch live TV shows on TV … they DVR them, they buy them on iTunes and they illegally download them from BitTorrent. If the archaic Nielsen system only took these viewers into account, many sci-fi TV shows would have massive ratings and last many more seasons.”

Engler tried to disspell some of these notions by saying that his network actually does track all kinds of usage, including traditional Nielsen ratings, DVR data, cable VOD, online views on sites like Hulu, online pay per view and illegal downloads. However, some of those numbers only mean that much to SyFy, simply because different types of use also bring in different kinds of revenue.

Online ads still don’t bring in nearly as much money as traditional advertising on TV, he wrote:

“If you add up all the money you get selling ads in live and DVR viewing and stack that against all the money you bring in through every other kind of viewing method, you’d probably be lucky to get $1 in online revenue for the same number of views that would bring in $10 on TV. And that’s likely an optimistic number.”

In other words: When it comes to SyFy’s bottom line, you’ll need ten views on Hulu (or on its own site, for that matter) to make up for one person not tuning in via traditional cable TV. And piracy of course doesn’t really bring anything to the bottom line either.

So how can networks like SyFy solve the conundrum of catering to a tech-savvy audience whose media consumption habits bring in less money? First of all, it’s worth noting that Engler actually doesn’t think online viewing is a huge money sink right now, simply because the audience is too small. But this could change with more people cutting the cord and embracing online viewing.

Many commenters still weren’t satisfied with Engler’s explanation, and part of me of course also hopes that there’s a way to bring a show like Caprica back. Well, maybe there is…sometime in the future. Responding to a reader’s suggestion to offer shows a second life through iTunes downloads or other forms of online-only financing, Engler said:

I don’t think the industry is close to that yet, although I think it could get there someday. Even inexpensive Web series can’t survive that way yet. Soon hopefully!

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The SyFy Channel just joined the list of programmers that block Google TV users from accessing full episodes on their sites, with the video player displaying the following message:

“Sorry, the video you’re trying to watch is not currently available on this device.”

GtvHub reported first about the blocking late Saturday, and we were able to confirm it when we tried to access SyFy content with a Logitech Revue.

The move isn’t entirely surprising. SyFy belongs to NBC Universal, which has been blocking Google TV from accessing video content on NBC.com ever since the first Google TV devices reached the market last month.

Google TV users have also been blocked from accessing content from Hulu, ABC and CBS. Some were able to regain access by using various workarounds, but sites like Hulu have been quick to close any loopholes.

However, cable networks have so far been more open to Google TV than the broadcasters. We found that content from most cable channels is still available on the device.

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This doesn’t make Red the highest-rated cable original movie premiere SyFy’s had this year; that would be Lake Placid 3, which was watched by 3.0 million last August.

But according to SyFy executive VP of programming and original movies Thomas Vitale, with whom I spoke via phone, “Any time you break two million viewers on a Saturday night, you’ve got a big, big success. It’s a lower viewing night in general, with a lot of DVR playback happening.” (Another factor Vitale didn’t mention: the fact that Red aired the Saturday before Halloween. In addition, these numbers do not account for DVR viewing, stats which aren’t available yet.)

He attributed that success to both the film’s high concept premise — a modern-day Little Red Riding Hood, fighting werewolves — as well as Day’s star power.

Vitale said that he and the SyFy team had been looking for a project for Day for a while, specifically citing Dr. Horrible as one of the projects that put her on their radar. When the idea of doing a spin on the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale came up, “It all kind of happened organically — the timing was just perfect.”

Vitale was quick to say that while Day’s 1.7 million Twitter followers were not a factor in her casting, it was the “icing on the cake. She probably brought a lot of fans to the screen — that always helps, to have someone able to do grassroots marketing just by talking to her fans.”

Day said via email,”I had an amazing experience on the show, more so knowing that the opportunity was most likely tied to my hard work creating my own web show. I know that my Tweeting about the show definitely raised awareness, I got tons of feedback and was touched that people genuinely were excited for me to be on their TVs. It’s that kind of fan support that keeps me going.”

When Red was first announced last March as a 2011 release (the effects work was completed early, allowing it to premiere in late October instead), I wondered how Day’s online success might affect the film’s performance, writing that “By 2011, TV and web content might be well-integrated enough that we’ll see TV commercials for Red plugging its star as ‘Dr. Horrible‘s Felicia Day.’”

It’s still 2010, and the TV commercials didn’t mention Dr. Horrible. Instead, they just said “Felicia Day is RED.”

“That’s what makes her a fascinating person to talk about,” Vitale said. “In five years, there will be a number of household names who are self-made, but she’s one of the first.”

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Riese: Kingdom Falling, re-edited in collaboration with the SyFy team, has a faster pace and voiceover narration by Amanda Tapping (Stargate SG-1), and the show’s fairy tale feel is now enhanced with the words “Once upon a time…” The original first episode was completely consumed by a fight between lost princess Riese (Christine Chatelain) and her pursuers; in this new take, there’s plenty of set-up and exposition establishing the kingdom of Eleysia, a kingdom in flux.

SyFy has an exclusive window for Riese‘s relaunch, keeping it geoblocked to the United States, but co-creator Ryan Copple promises via email that it will be available internationally “VERY soon.” The Riese iPhone game, which features narration by web maven Felicia Day, has also been submitted to Apple and should be available for download by early next week, if not sooner. The show will also soon go live on Hulu, where plenty of behind-the-scenes content is already available. Amanda Tapping’s involvement is notable because her own independent web series, Sanctuary, made the transition to television in 2008 and has been a solid performer for SyFy ever since.

It’s that model which Riese may replicate, according to Copple in a phone interview earlier this month, depending on the show’s online performance and discussions with international broadcasters “interested in seeing how the web-to-TV development can work.”

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Google TV has been in the headlines for its trouble with broadcasters, with major networks like ABC, NBC and CBS blocking Google TV owners from accessing full-episode streams of their shows online. Owners of Logitech’s new Revue set-top box or Sony’s Internet TV also don’t have access to Hulu or its CBS-owned competitor TV.com. However, a number of cable channels seem to be just fine with Google TV accessing their shows. In fact, we found that most popular shows on cable TV can be accessed freely with Google TV devices.

Turner Broadcasting was one of the official Google TV launch partners, so it’s not surprising to see the company’s networks TBS and TNT embrace Google TV. But we were pleasantly surprised to see that Syfy.com is streaming its shows to Google TV as well, despite being owned by NBC, and we loved the streams made available by Comedy Central. Daily Show, anyone?

Here’s a quick overview of what kind of content you get where, complete with a few words about the picture quality and overall experience:

Fox is the only major broadcaster not blocking Google TV. Shows like Glee, House, Bones, Good Guys and The Simpsons are available for free, and the quality is actually pretty good, even when watched on a 37” screen.

Comedy Central: The Viacom-owned network doesn’t bother with blocking Google TV, and many of its successful shows are available online for your viewing pleasure. Google TV owners can tune into full episodes of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Colbert Report, South Park, Drawn Together and other network hits in beautiful HD.

Syfy also doesn’t block Google TV, despite being owned by NBC Universal. Go to Syfy.com for shows like Caprica, Eureka, Sanctuary, Ghost Hunters, Stargate Universe and more — but don’t expect too much fun: The video quality was inconsistent, sometimes notably pixelated, and the player doesn’t offer any real full-screen experience. Instead, you’re stuck with a control bar and occasional banner ads at the bottom of the screen.

TBS offers access to full episodes of shows like My Name Is Earl, The Office, American Dad and Seinfeld. The player offers a true full-screen mode, but the video tends to be kind of pixelated. TNT is supposed to launch a Google TV-optimized site soon.

TNT serves up shows like Leverage, The Closer, Numb3rs and Supernatural. The picture quality could be better; a launch of a Google-optimized site is forthcoming.

Bravo is another basic cable site open for Google TV’s business. The site offers Google TV users access to full episodes of Flipping Out, Top Chef, The Millionaire Matchmaker and various Real Housewives franchises. However, the video quality is once again nothing to write home about, leaving those real housewives oftentimes really, really pixelated, and the player also tends to display banner ads at the bottom of the screen.

PBS is one of the official Google TV launch partners. The network optimized its PBS Kids site for Google TV, offering easy access to full episodes of shows like Arthur, Sesame Street and Martha Speaks. The newly-launched main PBS site is not yet optimized for Google TV, but it offers tons of programming, including full episodes of Bill Moyers, POV and Antiques Roadshow. The quality is good enough for PBS-type content, and the player works really well on the big screen.

USA Network doesn’t seem to have any full episodes of anything available right now, but their random collection of Comic-Con panel recordings played just fine on Google TV.

Spike delivers video with a nice full-screen player in full HD, and its catalog includes shows like Entourage, TNA Impact and The Ultimate Fighter.

To sum it up, there is a lot of content freely available for Google TV, but some of the sites could improve their video players and picture quality for devices like these. Navigating some of the sites was also pretty painful, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if others followed the example of Turner and PBS to launch Google TV-optimized sites soon.

Of course, the network’s stance could change. Syfy could decide to clamp down on Google TV, or CBS could decide to ease up. We’ll go back and update the list to reflect these changes, so check back occasionally, and feel free to recommend your own Google TV-compatible finds in the comments.

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Riese, originally an independent production with a budget of $200,000 and a cast drawn heavily from popular sci-fi properties like Stargate Atlantis, Battlestar Galactica and Smallville, has been offline since February 2010 because of a distribution deal with Fireworks International.

That will change by the end of this month, when SyFy, following its pick-up of the show last April, relaunches the series on SyFy.com. According to creator Ryan Copple, with whom I spoke via phone, the SyFy re-release of Riese will initially be geo-blocked as SyFy has an initial window of exclusivity. However, the series will go international shortly thereafter.

And it’s got a shiny new edit, thanks to Copple and his team collaborating with SyFy. “[The episodes] are so much better now — tight and quick. And Riese herself is much more captivating now,” Copple said about the re-edit. “It’s completely different now.”

No matter how much the episodes might change, Riese is still a transmedia experience, something that began even before the show’s launch, thanks to a puzzle-based game that revealed secrets about the mysterious religious cult at the heart of the show.

The iPhone game developed by the Vancouver-based Genius Factor Games — an RPG card-style battle game set to launch towards the end of the month — will take that even further thanks to Day’s narration. “We’ve been trying to make Riese go from a steampunk action show to steampunk fairy tale, and as part of that we’re trying to imbue the world with a narrator,” Copple said. The game play, thanks to Day’s voice-over, will thus be infused with more information about the world and people inhabited by Riese.

As for a potential TV adaptation, the Riese team has been talking with both SyFy as well as international broadcasters “interested in seeing how the web-to-TV development can work.” The Riese team is also in talks with a major publisher for a series of novels set in the kingdom of Eleysia.

This is all possible because Copple and co-creator Kaleena Kiff still hold the rights to their intellectual property, and thus have control over all potential franchising. “It’s the one thing to take away from the whole web studio thing,” Copple said. “We haven’t relied on anyone else yet, so why start now?”

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