University of Twente Student Theses
Strategic Communication in Esports : Predictive Analysis and Optimization for Team Performance
Kimathi, Kariko (2024) Strategic Communication in Esports : Predictive Analysis and Optimization for Team Performance.
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| Abstract: | This study establishes the relationship between communication and performance in professional League of Legends esports teams. Starting from a dataset of 38 recorded hours of voice and video from two high-level teams, this study quantifies communication with features around speech rate, overlap, and silence, with special attention to specific game events around the critical 20th minute, to find patterns in team communication that optimize performance. First, transcription had to be done of data analysis in the matches, while the detection and flagging of overlapping speech was performed. After this, computation of communication metrics was performed and matched with the game outcomes. Furthermore, the game state was extracted by OCR so that context would be provided for the communication. Topic modeling was also used to classify the in-game chat content to further investigate how the communication content was related to team success or failure. The results showed that some strategies in communication, such as deliberate overlap in periods of chaos and heightened attention around the 20-minute mark, were associated with better performance. Winning teams spoke in a more dominant way: more overlap and less silence. Losing teams, on the other hand, are quieter and involve less strategic coordination during key moments of the game. From these findings, some actionable insights have been derived that help in developing better team communication strategies in esports, particularly within high-pressure settings. It gives insight into the relationship between the patterns of communication and performance so that teams can refine their coordination at critical moments of the game. The findings will also add to the body of knowledge from other disciplines where teams must communicate quickly and efficiently under pressure, such as emergency operations or military-related work |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Subject: | 05 communication studies, 54 computer science |
| Programme: | Business Information Technology MSc (60025) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/104050 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
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