Rami Ismaail, cofounder of Vlambeer, accepts Ambassador Award at GDC Choice Awards.
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Indie dev Rami Ismail accepts GDC Ambassador Award for slaying gaming’s injustices

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Rami Ismail, cofounder of Vlambeer, accepted one of the gaming industry’s highest honors — the Game Developers Choice Ambassador Award — for his work in speaking out against injustices and raising awareness about them.

Ismail is a Dutch video game maker of Egyptian descent, and he is the first Muslim to receive the honor at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Among his deeds: Helping to organize the #1ReasonToBe diversity panel at the GDC, at significant financial expense for his company. He travels frequently and often speaks out on issues related to fairness and diversity.

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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.