Lis Moberly

Lis Moberly is the Creative Lead of 20th Century Games working with studios across the game industry on properties such as Alien, Predator, and the Simpsons, among others. Having worked in a variety of disciplines throughout her time in game development, her recent credits include Avowed, Hogwarts Legacy, Cursed to Golf, and We Went Back. Lis is a former university lecturer who continues to study critical issues facing game development such as feedback culture, game dev burnout, and institutional memory.

Retaining Institutional Knowledge in Games: Why It Matters and How to Use It

In every game studio that has clocked over ten years as a company, there are a few highly valuable developers who have been with the company many years across many projects. Whether they are high-level leadership or staff, these employees are often considered crucial for helping projects understand proprietary tools, a studio’s unique design philosophy, best practices, and trade secrets. More importantly, these long-time developers know the ins and outs of a studio’s spoken and unspoken history, culture, and foundation. In research, these developers hold what is called institutional knowledge. For game studio leaders, retaining institutional knowledge is one of the most critical components in ensuring their games, developers, and company succeeds. 

Yet industry-wide institutional knowledge has become harder to retain as mass layoffs, organizational realignments, and developers switching studios mid-project has become more common.

This panel will be a discussion between three industry leaders at companies with long-standing histories who believe institutional knowledge is the secret to a studio’s long-term success. They will discuss how institutional knowledge has impacted their studios for the better and how leaders of studios can leverage it in a way to build healthier teams, save money, and create stronger games.