About
Founder Background
“Born in the generation of the first “Bit Babies” of the 1970‘s, I grew up with technology as a permanent fixture in my life. My lifelong passion for video games and the games industry was ignited when I started programming games at the age of 9 on my trusty VIC-20. From that point forward, I threw myself into all manner of computers, electronics, networking, ham radio: anything with a digital heartbeat.
Carrying this passion for games and technology throughout my life was instrumental in my convincing Scott McNealy, then CEO of Sun Microsystems, to allow me to carve out a start-up environment within the company and pursue game technology development by my rules. The guiding principal for my efforts was to enable small, young development shops to have access to robust technologies that allowed them to compete more effectively in the market.”
As a 15-year veteran of Sun Microsystems, Chris Melissinos has contributed to and led numerous technology developments, including Java APIs focused on media and entertainment markets, mobile technologies, and was one of the originators of the Project Darkstar initiative. His expertise in technology adoption, social platforms, developer communities, and impact of technology as a change agent has made Melissinos a highly sought after speaker on these subjects, in conferences and universities all over the world. Offering insight into transforming education, social changes in youth culture, next-generation technology development and emerging development communities, his speaking resume includes JavaOne, SISCTI, Game Developers Conference, NUTN, E3, PAX, 3GSM, Stanford’s AlwaysOn, and Harvard’s Cyberposium.
Personal Philosophy
Video games are more for me than just an entertainment medium. At the time I started playing with computers, the ability to have control over a machine and make it play the games I wanted, was an amazingly powerful experience. At a time when you have the least control over your life, video games offered a degree of control that no other medium could match. A blank canvas, computers themselves were new worlds to conquer.
I remember vividly poring over the code snippets delivered each month in Compute’s Gazette and learned how to wring from those machines the tools to make my own games. Character generators that turned “A”s and “B”’s into asteroids and ships, plotting a little turtle into a visual spir-o-graph, exploiting I/O buffers to get more memory out of the earliest, anemic personal computers. It was this sense of discovery and wonder, fueled by the excitement of seeing your code dance across the screen in game form, that stayed with me all of these years and, ultimately, shaped my professional career.
Today, the video game industry is experiencing a sea change, due in no small part to the fact that the first generation who grew up playing video games are now at the age where they are having children of their own. Gamers raising gamers. And this is where my passion lies as both a video gamer and a technologist who is raising gamers of his own. The passion to build new, engaging and powerful experiences that can bring people together and instill in the player the wonder that only video games can provide.
Equal in that passion to create is the passion to preserve. It is important that we work to start preserving, for future generations, the collective output of the video game industry. The contribution of video games, not only to art, music, entertainment and storytelling, but to many areas including computer science, AI research, serious gaming, health care, etc., can not be overstated. The video game industry is at a cross road; one where the founders of the industry are starting to leave us and the ability to capture the creation of the industry, from those who started it, is closing rapidly. It is this sense of urgency that I have made my personal mission. To help elevate, collect and preserve the medium for generations to come.
Contact Information
E-Mail: contact@pastpixels.com
