Can a Software Development team be an RPG party?

(Este post vai em Inglês, para poder acercar os mais internacionais)

Today I was having a few laughs with a bunch of colleagues on twitter about Role-Playing Games (namely Dungeons and Dragons) and the similarities it could have with Software Development.

And then I read the following excerpt on a paper entitled "Collaboration in Software Engineering : a roadmap". by Jim Whitehead:

"[...] Very speculatively, it might also be possible for projects to graft the narrative and reward structure of MMO roleplaying games onto traditional engineering project work. In a game like WoW, in order to advance, players go on quests, a goal-oriented activity in the game world (go to a dungeon, kill all monsters, retrieve valuable artifact, return for reward). As players perform quests, their abilities increase, which is reflected in their character “leveling up.” Many players find the game setting (typically from fantasy or science fiction) combined with the quest narrative and leveling reward structure to be very motivational, and for some addictive. It would be intriguing for a project to map development activities onto this style of gameplay. One could imagine engineer experience and capabilities represented in the form of levels, with project subgoals broken down into quest-like units. If this could tap into the motivational aspects of MMO style gameplay, it might increase team productivity by providing a range of incentive structures in addition to the traditional ones of salary, promotion, and satisfaction at completing a project."

and then I go: "wow!... I'm not the only geek around here... someone actually thought of this...awesome!". It goes without saying that good ideas don't usually pop-up alone. If Thomas Eddison were 5 minutes late, he wouldn't, today, be called "Thomas Eddison"...nowadays its much easier to find our "thought buddies" and meld the ideas into fruition.