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Rami Ismail Announces Virtual Game Developers Event GameDev.World

Indie game luminary Rami Ismail of Dutch studio Vlambeer announced a new virtual conference, GameDev.World, earlier this week.

Taking place from June 21st to 23rd, GameDev.World – or GD.W, for short – will feature speeches, panels and Q&A sessions streamed live and translated into eight languages

The international focus of the event comes in part from Ismail’s difficulty putting a panel together for last year’s Game Developers Conference. Five of the attendees he had assembled had their U.S. visas revoked, often with only weeks’ notice, leaving Ismail scrambling.

An additional concern is what Ismail described in an interview with VentureBeat as an “industry segregated…by language.” To allow GD.W speakers to communicate in their native languages but reach as large an audience as possible, the conference will be working with a translation firm that will provide live interpretation via subtitles in English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese.

Rami Ismail - image courtesy official site
Rami Ismail – image courtesy official site

Free and Independent

While Ismail has not yet announced a sponsor list, he did state that there are enough sponsors in place to make the event free for all online viewers.

In addition to Ismail, the board of directors for GD.W includes Sarah Elmaleh (voice actress for Gone Home), Gabriel Santo (founder of indie game sustainability initiate Pro Indie Dev), Gwen Frey (founder of Chump Squad and developer of KINE, among other projects), and Houssem Ben Amor (co-founder of the Tunisian Game Development Association).

GD.W. is currently open for speakers and is also accepting applications for sponsors, volunteer moderators, and viewing locations.

Visit the GD.W. website for more details and contact information, and expect more coverage of the event here on IGR in the upcoming weeks and months.