This is really good to know - one tends to brush over the little accomplishments in life.
With regard to the 7 day RPG article, I want to add that participating in the 48h game programming competition was an extreme amount of fun. I thought that it didn't exist anymore, but just found that there was another one in December: http://www.ludumdare.com/
Game hackathons are great. My absolute favorite thing about game design is that it brings together such an incredible variety of people: graphics designers, composers, writers, programmers, interface builders. The best game designers are ones that have some understanding of every aspect of their game, even as they specialize. I'd imagine the same is invaluable to startups.
I only participated in 1,5 48h game programming competitions, but it was really great. Especially with the irc chat going along with it, following real time what the others were doing and getting quick answers to common game programming problems.
With regard to the 7 day RPG article, I want to add that participating in the 48h game programming competition was an extreme amount of fun. I thought that it didn't exist anymore, but just found that there was another one in December: http://www.ludumdare.com/