When I first heard Treyarch was adding “Zombie Mode” to its military shooter Call of Duty many years ago, I was wildly enthusiastic. The wave-based cooperative mode promised the thrill of the unexpected. One moment you’re fighting undead Nazis, then fending off flaming hellhounds, then shooting ghosts. It sounded like a better version of Lost, because the premise seemed to guarantee emotional confliction: Not only did the game force friends to battle under increasing stress, but the undulating tides of enemies would keep escalating in number. I imagined it would be like jamming Jack, Sawyer and that bald hunter guy into a den of polar bears and forcing them to emote at gunpoint. This would be perfect television.
However, Zombie Mode was a failed model, and this is why: Too much, too quickly, with no end in sight. At some point, I would turn into a nerve bucket; I couldn’t suppress the amorphous panic at the prospect of an endless, uphill battle, like sort of an aimless Valhalla for the dead. Even during the more disorienting parts of Lost, there was always the reassurance of direction; if two people are gathering fruit to Michael Giacchino’s “The Good Shepard,” I know they are about to make a breakthrough and unearth a secret. But with Call of Duty’s zombies, there is never palpable progress; at the end of a match, we’d merely see two players, firing their guns with sheer terror into the growing hordes, unloading clips with chattering abandon.
Without perspective, any deluge can seem overwhelming. Zombies don’t need a full mag to kill; a single shot in the head will suffice. So one tries practicing trigger discipline. But when the zombie tide swells out, it all just starts turning to shit; clean headshots turn into spray n’ pray. But what players really need to do is banish primal fear, instilling a cold precision that will foster organic adaptation and exploitation of the environmental factors. Granted, it is not an easy feat. Staying level-headed is tougher than pulling the trigger. But an exploding barrel, for example, shot with the right timing, could turn the tide of battle. We don’t need to hit all the zombies at once; we need to hit the right target, with the right ammunition, at the right time.
Perhaps this is why I think the television business is so enrapturing; it’s a trade more embattled, mercurial and unfathomable than all the zombie mobs out there. That feeling of claustrophobia, crowded in by that insurmountable fear of being overwhelmed – that’s the target audience. All this abstract deconstruction is necessary, and it’s necessary because the TV business is excessively complex. In a market that’s fragmenting faster than a lard tub at a fat club, you're going to need a shotgun rather than a rifle to hit any sort of traction. But no one awards marksman badges to someone with a blunderbuss; it’s the confirmed kills that count. So how do you make an impact in all this clutter and still nail an audience? It’s not a simple answer. Because the landscape is virtually unknown and constantly changing. Just look at the velocity of new platform releases ramping up – I watch Periscope twice a day now, and I’ve never even heard of Periscope a month ago. The Snapchats, the Meerkats, and Big Frames – floodgates have opened with Multichannel Networks (MCNs), curation platforms, and mobile applications. Seismic shifts from a focus on network to cable have dramatically transferred to Over the Top services (OTT); 80% of primetime internet traffic is Netflix, with Showtime and HBO Go gunning for slices of SVOD pie. When there’re so many players in the ring, with so much competition, all struggling to get compelling content on your platform, it becomes easy to ditch the tactical jabs for roundhouse punches 30 seconds to the bell. And in a business where 95% of everything fails, you better be hauling.