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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Lual Mayen: From refugee to game developer

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

For 22 of his 24 years of life, Lual Mayen lived in a refugee camp in northern Uganda. His parents fled from South Sudan and its decades-long civil war. And that is why Mayen’s journey to becoming a game developer is so rare and amazing.

I heard Mayen tell his story at Rami Ismail’s #1ReasonToBe panel at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. As he told that story, there wasn’t a dry eye in the audience. So, I met with Mayen on Friday and captured his story on video. He tells it so well, and I encourage you to watch the whole video.

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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.