Game Of Rivals: E-Sports Study Finds Winning Formula
By analysing esports teams, Ching and co-authors Enrico Forti (Manhattan College) and Evan Rawley (University of Connecticut) find that people who've competed against each other in the past make better teammates.
Their study evaluates millions of randomly formed teams in the global multiplayer game Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2).
Players in DOTA 2 are frequently reshuffled into new teams, offering the chance to measure how different team compositions influence success, says Ching, an avid gamer himself.
"Defense of the Ancients is a high-pressure game where two teams of five players battle head-to-head.
"With millions of active players and a professional circuit that sells out stadiums, it's one of the most competitive and team-oriented games in the esports world."
The large-scale study finds that teammates who've competed against one another in the past, gaining what the researchers call 'competitive familiarity', perform significantly better than those who haven't.
So why might past rivalry make for better teamwork?
Ching says competition, especially high-stakes public competition, offers insights into how people think, react, and strategise.
"When those same individuals become teammates, those insights can be used to improve coordination and decision-making.
"Competing against a person builds familiarity. Things that might be overlooked when on the same team might be more clearly noticed and remembered during competition."
One professional player quoted in the study, Su 'Super' Peng, described how competition helped him "feel" his opponent's style of play, allowing for a deeper understanding once they were on the same team.
"Competitive familiarity is surprisingly common in organisational life," says Ching. "It happens when companies merge, poach talent from competitors, or bring rival teams together for product development."
Real-world examples where organisations harness rivalry to drive innovation and learning include Samsung, where competition between some internal teams is encouraged before bringing them together to develop new products.
Cybersecurity and tech companies sometimes form 'red teams' of internal contrarians who mimic rival attackers to identify weaknesses. And sports teams frequently pay big bucks to bring former adversaries into the fold.
Ching's paper, published in Organization Science, includes a few ideas to harness the benefits of competition: Rotating employees through competing teams, staging internal competitions and encouraging former rivals to co-lead projects.
"Esports provides a unique lens into how teams form, adapt and compete under pressure,' he says. 'Just as people learn to work better together through collaboration, they can also learn and have better outcomes through competition."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Otago Daily Times
2 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Miss Tourism International title winner ‘stoked'
Emily Faulkner has no interest in spouting cliches about world peace. Instead, the 2025 Miss New Zealand pageant Miss Tourism International title winner wants to use her new-found platform to make major changes a little closer to home. The 21-year-old, formerly of Mosgiel, was one of five title winners at this year's pageant in Auckland over the weekend, and each will now represent New Zealand at varying world pageants overseas. "Honestly, I'm stoked. When they announced the top five, I was like, 'oh my God, I get to go overseas and represent our country'. "It's such an honour." Britney Pringle was crowned Miss New Zealand 2025 and will represent the country at the Miss International, in Tokyo, this November. Sophie Pardington won the Miss Supranational title, Kelsey Turner won the Miss Intercontinental title and Toma Mirchevska won the Tourism Queen of the Year title. Miss Faulkner will compete in the Miss Tourism International pageant in China, in November. But first, she has a major hurdle to clear. She is in her final year of nurse training at the University of Auckland, and her nursing state exam is on November 18. "I'm meant to be in China on November 16, for the start of the pageant. "I'm not sure yet how I'm going to make that work." It appeared she would have to exercise her diplomatic negotiation skills, to see if there was a way she could do both. At this stage, she was not thinking too deeply about her chances in the competition, she said. "I tend to go into it not thinking of winning. "I like to go into it mainly to enjoy the experience and embrace everyone's cultures. "It's just amazing to see the different lifestyles and everything — it's quite a learning experience. "It does make you appreciate the world a lot more. "So if by chance I did win, I'd be like, 'oh my God, what's actually happening?"' She said a lot of people thought pageants were just about the glitz, glamour and beauty of women, but it was so much more than that. "That's created such a big stereotype in pageantry about if you're beautiful, you win or that's all it is. "But realistically, pageantry is actually so much about the mission that you strive for. "It's focused on what we're striving for, what kind of change we want to make. "So it takes a lot of actual intelligence to be able to do what these girls do." Miss Faulkner said she hoped to break some of New Zealand's societal barriers, like judging, bullying — anything online, especially. "We should be able to embrace each other's differences, not view them as negative, because I see it all the time in healthcare especially — how that impacts mental health. "I really just hope to advocate for everyone in general, because we were made to be the way we are for a reason. And that shouldn't be a fault. "We shouldn't have to change to be the society's level of perfect. "You are already perfect in yourself, but we just have to let the world see that. "I'm tired of hearing people saying they want to change it."
RNZ News
5 days ago
- RNZ News
The new band that wasn't: AI created Velvet Sundown
This audio is not downloadable due to copyright restrictions. AI generated image Photo: Spotify When Velvet Sundown recently released its new album, it made a rapid rise through the Spotify charts and attracted nearly two million monthly listeners. Not bad for a band that didn't exist before June, and actually, doesn't really exist at all. Spotify has now changed the band's bio to confirm the music's been created using artificial intelligence, while "guided by human creative direction". "It's not a trick" - the bio states - "it's a mirror". So are we through the looking glass when it comes to how our creative content is generated, thanks to AI? Can we trust our ears? And where does it leave the artists whose work it's probably been trained on? Dr Joshua Yuvaraj has been considering this, he's a senior lecturer in the faculty of law at the University of Auckland. He also a co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Intellectual a musician himself.
Scoop
07-07-2025
- Scoop
Game Of Rivals: E-Sports Study Finds Winning Formula
As Saudi Arabia kicks off the 2025 Esports World Cup with a US $70 million prize pool and an opening-night concert by Post Malone, researcher Dr Kenny Ching (University of Auckland) says the most successful squads may well be built on past rivalries. By analysing esports teams, Ching and co-authors Enrico Forti (Manhattan College) and Evan Rawley (University of Connecticut) find that people who've competed against each other in the past make better teammates. Their study evaluates millions of randomly formed teams in the global multiplayer game Defense of the Ancients 2 (DOTA 2). Players in DOTA 2 are frequently reshuffled into new teams, offering the chance to measure how different team compositions influence success, says Ching, an avid gamer himself. 'Defense of the Ancients is a high-pressure game where two teams of five players battle head-to-head. 'With millions of active players and a professional circuit that sells out stadiums, it's one of the most competitive and team-oriented games in the esports world.' The large-scale study finds that teammates who've competed against one another in the past, gaining what the researchers call 'competitive familiarity', perform significantly better than those who haven't. So why might past rivalry make for better teamwork? Ching says competition, especially high-stakes public competition, offers insights into how people think, react, and strategise. 'When those same individuals become teammates, those insights can be used to improve coordination and decision-making. 'Competing against a person builds familiarity. Things that might be overlooked when on the same team might be more clearly noticed and remembered during competition.' One professional player quoted in the study, Su 'Super' Peng, described how competition helped him 'feel' his opponent's style of play, allowing for a deeper understanding once they were on the same team. 'Competitive familiarity is surprisingly common in organisational life,' says Ching. 'It happens when companies merge, poach talent from competitors, or bring rival teams together for product development.' Real-world examples where organisations harness rivalry to drive innovation and learning include Samsung, where competition between some internal teams is encouraged before bringing them together to develop new products. Cybersecurity and tech companies sometimes form 'red teams' of internal contrarians who mimic rival attackers to identify weaknesses. And sports teams frequently pay big bucks to bring former adversaries into the fold. Ching's paper, published in Organization Science, includes a few ideas to harness the benefits of competition: Rotating employees through competing teams, staging internal competitions and encouraging former rivals to co-lead projects. 'Esports provides a unique lens into how teams form, adapt and compete under pressure,' he says. 'Just as people learn to work better together through collaboration, they can also learn and have better outcomes through competition.'
