Philip Tan is the creative director for the MIT Game Lab. He teaches
CMS.608 Game Design and CMS.611J/6.073J
Creating Video Games. For six years, he was the executive director for the US operations of the
Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, a game research initiative.
He has served as a member of the steering committee of the Singapore chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and worked closely with Singapore game developers to launch industry-wide initiatives and administer content development grants as an assistant manager in the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore. Before 2005, he produced and designed PC online games at The Education Arcade, a research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that studied and created educational games. He complements a Master's degree in Comparative Media Studies with work in Boston's School of Museum of Fine Arts, the MIT Media Lab, WMBR 88.1FM and the MIT Assassins' Guild, the latter awarding him the title of "Master Assassin" for his live-action roleplaying game designs. He also founded a DJ crew at MIT.
Thesis:
Tensions in Live-Action Roleplaying Game Design: A Case Study with the MIT Assassins’ Guild