Christopher Robert Melissinos is a leading figure in the

Java programming language Java is a high-level, class-based, object-oriented programming language that is designed to have as few implementation dependencies as possible. It is a general-purpose programming language intended to let programmers ''write once, run anywh ...

community. He served as

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

' Chief Evangelist and

Chief Gaming Officer A chief gaming officer, or chief game officer (abbreviated as CGO) is an executive position whose holder is focused on research and technical issues within a computer game company. Responsibilities The chief gaming officer or chief game office ...

. During his tenure at Sun, he was responsible for the creation of their Game Technologies Group and was a driving political force behind the formation of several open source Java gaming technologies including

Project Darkstar Project Darkstar was an open-source MMOG middleware solution written in Java. Project Darkstar began as a personal project of Jeff Kesselman in 1999. It later became a research project at Sun Microsystems, and aimed to "help developers and ope ...

, and Java bindings for

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and Jinput. Melissinos is a prolific speaker, regularly speaking at conferences such as the

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Electronic Entertainment Expo E3 (short for Electronic Entertainment Expo or Electronic Entertainment Experience in 2021) is a trade event for the video game industry. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) organizes and presents E3, which many developers, publisher ...

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...

, Harvard's Cyberposium, Java Conference in Milan, Italy, and

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's Electronic Gaming Summit. He was also the host of

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in 2009.

Past Pixels

In 2009, Chris Melissinos founded the PastPixels organization to start and focus on the long term preservation of video games and related ephemera. Stemming from his lifelong collecting, since the early 1970s, and building upon his work in the video games industry for more than 15 years, PastPixels was created as an entity for him to pursue preservation projects. The first of these projects to be completed was "The Art of Video Games" The Art of Video Games
,

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

for the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. * Past Pixels website
www.PastPixels.com

The Art of Video Games Exhibition

"The Art of Video Games" exhibition opened at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on March 16, 2012 and closed on September 30, 2012. This exhibition became one of the most successful exhibitions in the history of the museum, attracting more than 23,000 visitors during its opening weekend and more than 680,000 visitors in its 6-month run at the museum. The exhibit's goal was to examine the influence of art and popular culture on video games, and the subsequent reflection of video games on culture with titles spanning over four decades of gaming. Chris Melissinos is the exhibit curator and he assembled an advisory group made up of experts, developers, and journalists in the interactive entertainment industry. to offer suggestions and opinions in the structure of the exhibition. Additionally, there was a public vote for the final 80 games, out of 240, that were presented in the exhibition to allow for the inclusion of Melissinos' "Three Voices of Video Games" thesis in the selection process itself. This public vote ran from February 14, 2011 through April 17, 2011 and received more than 3.7 million votes from 119,000 people in 175 countries. Considered to be one of the standout art exhibitions of 2012, The Art of Video Games exhibition toured across the US into 2016.

TEDx Talk - "Video Games: Limitless Universe for Exploring Humanity"

On May 6, 2017, Chris Melissinos gave a talk at the TEDx conference in Herndon, Virginia, titled "Video Games: Limitless Universe for Exploring Humanity". In this talk, Melissinos described the evolution of video games as a communicative and artistic medium, demonstrating how it evolved form the earliest forms in the 1970's and how it the medium has grown to enable complex and emotional stories to be told through it. From the YouTube page, ''"Video games, originally considered the playthings of the first video gamers of the 1970's, have grown to become one of the most important art forms ever at mankind's disposal. Chris Melissinos expands on the humanity that video games are imbued with through their creators and demonstrates how their evolution and maturation has enabled them to become a powerful medium for storytelling and empathy."''

Industry Awards

On March 25, 2013, Chris Melissinos was presented at the Game Developers Choice Awards with the "Ambassador Award" for 2013. The Ambassador Award honors an individual or individuals who have helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be an advocate for video games and help further our art. This award was presented by his longtime friend and industry luminary

Mark DeLoura Mark A. DeLoura (born 1969 or 1970) is a video gaming advocate and an author. He served as the Senior Advisor for Digital Media for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), he was Editor in Chief of ''Game Developer (magaz ...

, who is currently serving as the Senior Adviser for Digital Media at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

References

External links

Interview with Sun's Chris Melissinos, LWN.net

Podcasts by Chris Melissinos

Twitter feed

Executive biography (Retrieved from Archive.org on April 24, 2013)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Melissinos, Christopher Year of birth missing (living people) Living people George Mason University alumni Sun Microsystems people American people of Greek descent Game Developers Conference Ambassador Award recipients