Team Momentum: The Criticality of Resources in League of Legends

Abstract

Objective: This research investigates the impact of the early game and team resources on overall team performance in League of Legends, a Multi-player Online Battle Arena gaming environment. Background: The early game is typically defined as the first 10-15 minutes of the game. I hypothesize that a resource-based view approach fails to capture a holistic analysis of team performance, especially in early stages of formation. Methods: The data set used in this research consists of data from the first 10-15 minutes of professional gameplay. Results: Binary ANOVA and visual graphing techniques are used to explore the data to answer the proposed research questions. Gold difference over time is used as an independent variable in developed models. Results show that gold difference has a significant impact on but cannot always explain team performance. Conclusions: This study demonstrates how data on teamwork may be used to model the performance of teams. The results highlight that a pre-emptive resource-based view may fall short in explaining team success and performance. Application: This research shows the value of reassessing a resource-based view to account for resource allocation and its effects on team performance.