Josh Sawyer

Josh Sawyer started in the game industry in 1999 at Black Isle Studios, where he worked on the Icewind Dale games. Since 2005, he has been at Obsidian Entertainment, where he has directed Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, and the 2022 narrative adventure game Pentiment. He is currently Obsidian’s studio design director.

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.