Visa restrictions keep two Islamabad girls from game developer moot

ISLAMABAD: Anam Sajid and Bisma Zia were thrilled when they received invitations to attend the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC), a massive San Francisco-based event in March that attracts game design talent from all over the world, Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Through a scholarship awarded by the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), they were given passes to the conference. There, they could network with big-name developers, as well as attend keynotes and workshops on game design. It was a phenomenal opportunity for the young, up-and-coming game designers from Islamabad. It soon dissolved, however, when their visas were rejected, preventing them from traveling to the United States.

“When my visa was rejected I thought maybe it was because of some mistake I made,” Anam, 22, told The Washington Post. “But when Bisma’s visa also got rejected, who had a completely different experience, we thought it probably had something to do with the fact that we are Pakistani.”

Bisma’s visa rejection fell on the same day as a global game jam organised by the IGDA, an event in which participants compete to create a game in an allotted time. The two joined and made ‘Trying to Fly’, a game about repairing what they see as a broken visa system. Bisma, 25, said she had “huge feelings of frustration, annoyance and sadness” that she initially didn’t want to explore because they were “all very raw at the time.” In the end, though, the two felt it would help to funnel those tumultuous feelings into something positive.