Tan, Aroon (Magma Studios Pte Ltd, SG)

Topic: "Living History through World of Temasek"

Aroon Tan has been in the virtual worlds / online games, 3D computer graphics and the animation industry since 1993. He took up his first management role at Virtual Reality Technologies in 1995, building online multiplayer virtual worlds and virtual reality simulations. By 1997, he was appointed Managing Director, and held a concurrent role as CEO of Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) developer Paraworld (APAC) from 2000 to 2001.

In 2001 he founded Interactive Digital Dreams (IDD) to establish a platform and gateway for “digitally interactive” enterprises to access Asia Pacific markets. From 2004 to 2007, IDD formed a joint venture with European games developer / producer 10TACLE STUDIOS AG where he took the role of CEO (Asia Pacific).

Magma Studios (2005) is his latest company in partnership with award winning writer, producer and director Chris Jones. Magma Studios combines the best of online games, rich media and social networks to create exciting and engaging educational games, non-fiction MMOGs and Virtual World Role Playing Games (VWRPG) for the emerging 3D web, as well as virtual reality installations for museums and other clients with an educational mission. Aroon is also the President of the Games Exchange Alliance, a non-profit organisation involved in expanding the capabilities and infrastructure of Asian game developers and service providers.

Summary of presentation
World of Temasek breaks new ground borrowing features from the most popular Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and repurposes them for an educational, constructivist learning context. Through an academically accurate recreation of 14th Century Singapore, Magma has overlaid directed gameplay, intuitive User Interface, collection and point-earning game mechanic all within a browser based virtual world roleplaying game.