Objective: This research investigates the effect of “critical” team members and team familiarity on team performance in the Multi-player Online Battle Arena gaming environment, League of Legends™. Background: A critical team member is any member of a team whose presence (or absence) can have a dramatic impact on the team’s ability to reach their objective, while team familiarity can be viewed as the knowledge team members have about one another and the knowledge team members have about the tasks that must be accomplished. Methods: Data visualization techniques and logistic regression is used to explore team data collected from publicly accessible sources for the online game League of Legends, which is one of the most popular games in the world. Results: The proportion of time a team’s “Carry” is incapacitated (the “critical” team member) during a given match has a direct impact on how the team performs. Conclusions: The results show that critical team positions exist on teams, and can have a significant effect on achieving the team’s goals. In addition, there is a need for the development of tools, techniques and measures to bring “Big Data” to bear in the study of teamwork. Application: This research illustrates the feasibility of exploring online gaming data for new insights into team performance.
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