Since it’s even money that an average TV series will eventually attain the patina of a beloved cross-generational cultural experience, it was only a question of time until someone enshrined video games as pop art.

That someone is Chris Melissinos, formerly the chief gaming officer at Sun Microsystems for 15 years, currently the vice president of corporate marketing at Verisign, which is quite a resume for someone who’s only 42. He is the curator of “The Art of Video Games,” now at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, which is the first museum to show the exhibit since its premiere at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.

It provides an admittedly interesting history of the progression of a form that exists on the perilous edge of pure entertainment but has lately adopted a thin crust of style -just like a lot of other forms.

Melissinos’ goal was to demonstrate the progression of an art form. “I set out to choose genres that lent themselves to the storytelling aspect that video games employ. That’s why there aren’t any sport games in the exhibit; it doesn’t matter whether it’s the current Madden or the first football game, the game itself remains the same. There are hard and fast rules in the sports climate.”

Also contributing was the fact that Melissinos not only works in the field, he’s an ardent gamer himself. “I set out to look at my experience professionally as a collector since my childhood. I picked a list of games that would allow me to tell the story I wanted to tell - the ripples of games and mechanics that persist over time.”

The exhibit covers 40 years with 20 machines. “I left out a machine that personally pained me to leave out,” he says. “The Turbografx 16, a 16 bit machine. It was phenomenal, but I chose systems because these were the platforms that resonated in the minds of the public as video games of the period. People know Nintendo and Super Mario and Sonic; they’re more recognized than iconic figures like Mickey Mouse.”

What makes the exhibit interesting is the audience it’s drawn - lots of fathers and sons.

“We are now at a point where we have gamers raising gamers,” says Melissinos. “It means that a flash of critical observation is not only appropriate but inevitable. Museums and institutions realize that.”

The exhibit actually doesn’t emphasize technology as much as what the technology supports. “All that technology does is provide the artist with a canvas with which to paint. Unless the story and mechanics are good on their own, it will never be a good game. Graphics don’t matter; it’s what is communicated that’s important. There are games that are 20 and 30 years old that are still played with pleasure, and they’re not about graphics.”

As far as technical support for the games in the exhibit, “there are enough systems available out there for acquisition so that everything I wanted to show could be supported. But that will lessen over time. It’s a conversation that’s bubbled to the foreground of the gaming community - the best way to preserve digital ephemera, especially when so much of the market is moving toward downloading. It might be emulation of systems so that they can approximate physical hardware.”

What about a classic videogame corollary to classic cars, where parts that can no longer be found via cannibalizing other cars are custom-manufactured?

“Customizing a physical component is different than getting a company to manufacture limited runs of chips that no longer exist,” he says doubtfully.

Perhaps the greatest influence of video games has been in the movie business, especially visually, and not necessarily in a good way. Melissinos disagrees. “The motion capture of Avatar was pioneered in the video game world. It’s not video games that are influencing creative decisions, it’s the technology.

“That’s why Hollywood has tried to create movies based on video games. But they always fall down because they’re missing one crucial element, which is the player themselves. Video games stand apart because it’s the only creative form where the player actively participates in the unfolding of the story and the discovery of the characters. It makes it a personal experience, and that’s the disconnect in the movie adaptations.”

Is there a runt of the litter - a great game with stunning visuals that didn’t make it commercially?

“There are tons. There was a game called “Beyond Good and Evil,” a game on Playstation 2, a beautiful game with a beautiful story: capitalism against ecology. The protagonist is a reporter and she uses a camera to take photographic evidence of the destruction of the local ecology. Wonderful game, great characters, with a real solidity to the world. But it didn’t resonate.

“That was in the early 2000s. But now, people remember what a great game it was, and now they want a sequel. It’s the same sort of reflection that has unearthed masterpieces in other media. ‘The Great Gatsby’ was considered a failure in its time, but 50 years on people realized its importance and it’s now a masterwork. Sometimes you need reflection to realize what’s really important.”

Melissinos believes the next wave of gaming will involve connecting broader audiences with more diverse content than ever before. “Connecting people to experiences, not just across geographies, but with multiple devices and interactions. What’s most exciting is that we’re on the precipice of a new renaissance in game development.

“The games have always been handcuffed by the limitations of the technology. The Atari games came with lushly illustrated books and manuals, because the video technology wasn’t fully capable of articulating the message. It required a secondary material to flesh out.

“But now it’s possible. Everything is possible.”