This article aims to enlighten how individuals apply and develop cooperative and computational thinking in online collaborative challenges, and what ludic features support or discourage such approaches. Over n = 1400 subjects have been involved with a quantitative survey about three collaboration-based video games--i.e. "Overwatch," "For Honor," and "Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege." Results point to malleable factors in strengthening teamwork--i.e. asymmetrical roles, sharing information mechanics, broad game community--and provide empirical evidence of the correlation between cooperative and computational thinking. Implications for educational activities and cooperative learning interventions are outlined in terms of design strategies and concrete applications.