The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) kicks off its ambitious Game Masters exhibition today in Melbourne, Australia, where the young, but already prestigious institution will be celebrating the most innovative and influential artists and authors in video games through a four month long showcase of over 125 playable games and a series of presentations, workshops and screenings in collaboration with some of the biggest names in the medium.

Just check out this list of luminaries that are involved with the exhibition:

Toru Iwatani (Pac-Man), Ed Logg (Asteroids), Tomohiro Nishikado (Space Invaders), Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Child of Eden), Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy (Rock Band), Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus), Will Wright (SimCity), Jonathan Blow (Braid), Masaya Matsuura (PaRappa the Rapper), Marcus Persson (Minecraft), and Thatgamecompany (Flower, Journey), Tim Schafer (Full Throttle, Grim Fandango) and Warren Spector (Deus Ex).

Tim Schafer and Warren Spector, in particular, will be participating in respective “In Conversation With” evenings to kick off the exhibition, where they’ll be sharing anecdotes and insight on game design to a sold-out audience!

But it gets even better! ACMI has also asked both Tim Schafer and Japanese gaming auteur Hideo Kojima to curate a series of films that inspire their work, and the result are screenings of the cult classics including Heavy Metal and John Carpenter’s Escape from New York.

Searching the website, yields even more exciting events and workshops to participate in. If you live in Australia, and are even remotely interested in gaming, ACMI is likely to be your second living room this summer.

Now, if only an exhibition like this could be put on in this hemisphere…

Photos via Kotaku.