Lual Mayen grew up as a refugee in Uganda. And now he is a game developer.
Lual Mayen grew up as a refugee in Uganda. And now he is a game developer.
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Global Gaming Citizen Lual Mayen launches Kickstarter for Salaam, a game about peace

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Lual Mayen has become a well-known figure in gaming during the past six months after he was named a Global Gaming Citizen by Facebook at The Game Awards in December. Now he wants to translate his fame as a refugee-turned-game-developer into support for a game about peace.

Mayen launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $75,000 for Salaam, an endless runner title that shows the plight of refugees fleeing from violence. He spent 22 of his 24 years in a refugee camp, and now he is making games.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.