Metagame Analysis Laboratory
Esports & Games across all specialties
We are Metagame Analysis Laboratory, an interdisciplinary Scientific Research Laboratory for Esports & Games in the School of Media & Communication at Korea University. We investigate novel concepts that underlie the complexities of Esports & Games.
Professor
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Jimoon Kang
Research Professor, School of Media & Communication, Korea University, 2023-.
Senior Researcher, T1 Esports Laboratory, 2023-.
Visiting Researcher, Institute of Sport Science, Seoul National University, 2023-.
E-mail: kangjimoon@korea.ac.kr
Experience
Analyst, T1, 2022-2023
KT Rolster, 2020-2021.
King-zone DragonX, 2019.
Research Professor, Department of Computer Science, Yonsei Univerisity, 2021-2022.
Postdoctoral Researcher, Radiation Laboratory, University of Notre Dame, 2020-2021.
Education
PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University, 2020.
BS in Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National Univerisity, 2013
Research
Primary Areas of Interest
Metagame Analysis in League of Legends
Metagames are the perceived optimal or dominant playing strategy. They are set of popular strategies or overarching way of play that appears optimised for an individual player or team based on both their perceived strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their respective opponents, using information contained both in and outside the game and its surrounding environment. They are never created in isolation, and rather they are part of a shifting ecosystem of highly public competitive play. They are constantly evolving as players experiment with different playstyles, new champions are introduced, and balance updates are made to the game.
Cognitive Function of Esports player
Cognitive function of gamers refer to the collective cognitive characteristics of gamers who plan and execute appropriate input actions in response to input tasks to be performed in games.
Esports players show shorter reaction time, higher accuracy and precision than general gamers, but there is no quantitative study on Esports player.
We are developing tools and programs to measure and evaluate the objective cognitive ability of esports players, using similar modeling and testing tools that have been used in research on cognitive function in other sports.
Aging curve of Esports player
The aging trends of professional players are crucial to understand for player performance and career longevity in any sport, which can impact the sustainability and stability of the industry as a whole.
As professional esports players age, they may face unique challenges that can impact their ability to compete at a high level. For example, players experience physical decline, such as decreased reaction time, decreased hand-eye coordination, and increased risk of injury. They also experience cognitive decline, such as decreased memory and concentration, which can make it harder to learn new strategies and adapt to changes in the game. Additionally, they experience burnout and mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety, which can impact their performance and overall well-being.
The game of Go after Alphago
One of the most surprising events in AI over the past decade is the advent of AlphaGo developed by Alphabet's Google DeepMind. We study the impact of AI on Go players with the changes in play style and the changes in age-specific performance.
Publications
CHI 2022 Papers - How AI-Based Training Affected Performance of Professional Go Players
Since the advent of AlphaGo, Artificial Intelligence(AI) has been actively introduced into the Go training. We analyzed how the performance of professional Go players has changed since the advent of AlphaGo, and the significant impact of AI-based training was confirmed. We interviewed and surveyed professional Go players and found that AI has been actively introduced into the Go training process since the advent of AlphaGo. The significant impact of AI-based training was confirmed in a subsequent analysis of 6,292 games in Korean Go tournaments and Elo rating data of 1,362 Go players worldwide. Overall, the tendency of players to make moves similar to those recommended by AI has sharply increased since 2017. The degree to which players’ expected win rates fluctuate during a game has also decreased significantly since 2017. We also found that AI-based training has provided more benefits to senior players and allowed them to achieve Elo ratings higher than those of junior players.
eSports & Games Studies - Aging curve of eSports players in League of Legends, 2021
In this paper, the effect of the eSports player's age on the performance in four major regional leagues of League of Legends (LCK, LPL, LEC, and LCS) was investigated from spring 2016 to summer 2020.
