Ryan Ware
VFX Producer
Ryan comes all the way from New Zealand’s Weta Digital having worked on The Hobbit films, Man of Steel, The Wolverine, The Penguins of Madagascar and many more. Ryan is with Dreamgate Studios as the VFX Producer, managing the team to get the best out of the artists and technicians and reporting on progress to the films producers and investors.
John De Margheriti
CHieF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
John De Margheriti holds a Global Executive MBA from Sydney University and is an Australian film and game producer. He co-manages video games and visual effects schools, film and game co-working spaces and is producing a slate of new projects.
Dreamgate Studios undertakes all visual effects work for John’s films and top quality clients.
A seasoned, highly successful businessman, De Margheriti co-founded Micro Forté in 1985, one of the oldest independent video games development studios in the world and produced several globally successful games, such as Fallout Tactics. In 1995 John co-patented a system and method for creating highly scalable client-server technology and in 1999 he co-invented the massively multiplayer middle-ware online category through his BigWorld Technology company which was widely used in China, later exiting to Wargaming.net, the makers of World of Tanks, one of the technology company’s most successful licensees.
Additionally, De Margheriti founded The Academy of Interactive Entertainment Ltd (AIE) in 1996, a non-profit college and arguably the world’s original game school with campuses in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide, Online, Seattle, and Lafayette (aie.edu.au). He founded the Game Developers’ Association of Australia (GDAA) in 1999 and later co-founded Game Plus, a coworking space for over 50 game development companies.
Deciding that he had achieved all he wanted from the video games industry, he turned his focus to innovating the independent Australian film industry. He co-founded Film Plus, a collaborative production studio for independent film production and related companies. He was appointed an Honorary Ambassador for Canberra in 2000 for his contribution to the video games industry, the 2014 CSIRO Benson Entrepreneur of the Year and the 2022 Pearcey Medal for outstanding contribution to developing the Australian game development industry and more recently, film and visual effects industries.
VICKI DE MARGHERITI
Chief Executive Officer
With a background in business , a Bachelor of Science (Hons) from the University of NSW and MBA from University of Canberra, Mrs. De Margheriti co-manages a family-run conglomerate comprised of video games development, video games and visual effects schools, film and game coworking spaces, film financing and production, commercial and residential real estate investments, and a technology park.
Vicki De Margheriti, along with the other members of her family, are the founders of DEMS Entertainment. With over 30 years of experience managing companies and facilitating business and industry growth in game development, 3D animation and visual FX industries, Mrs. De Margheriti works with DEMS Entertainment’s employees and partners in financing and producing upcoming major films. In addition to DEMS Entertainment, she is also the CEO of the Academy of Interactive Entertainment Ltd (AIE), the Canberra Technology Park and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Additionally, Mrs. De Margheriti has been a director on the board of games studio Micro Forté Pty Ltd and middleware developer BigWorld Pty Ltd.