ODYSSEYNOW: MORE THAN A GAME
Zachary Horton
Gaming’s popularity has surpassed all other forms of narrative media, including books and movies. Zachary Horton wants everyone to understand that video games are more than just diversions.
“To understand ourselves as a culture, we have to understand our stories, the media we use to tell them and how those things have changed over time,” says the associate professor of film and media studies in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.
As part of that effort, Horton is writing a book about the first 30 years of computing, the 1940s through early 1970s. His research unearthed schematics for the Magnavox Odyssey, the first video game console people could play at home. It debuted in 1972 but has not garnered much attention or been properly documented.
That discovery led to OdysseyNow, the first definitive archive of this important part of early computer history. The project now includes a YouTube channel and website, where people can watch game-play videos and collectors can connect. When the project revealed an Odyssey game that was never released, Horton’s team recreated the lost video game “Ski Festival” and held gaming tournaments.
While Horton lacks the free time to play games as often as he would prefer, he believes that hands-on experience with early computers and games reveals the genealogy of our current media, the origins of artificial intelligence and our culture’s “media potentials” for the future.
Horton also founded and runs Pitt’s Vibrant Media Lab, a “quirky, messy space” that’s part science lab, part design studio and part humanities gathering space. The space is equipped with various equipment and designed so people can play, create and cross-pollinate ideas in unique ways.
“To understand ourselves as a culture, we have to understand our stories, the media we use to tell them and how those things have changed over time.”