Go Past Earth

GATEKEEPERS WITHOUT GATES For years, aspiring game developers were told that ideas were worthless. That execution was everything. And to a large extent, they were right. Everyone has ideas. Very few have the technical skills, resources, time, and perseverance required to turn them into actual games. But here's the thing: that reality also served as a natural barrier to entry. The industry didn't need explicit gatekeepers. The gates were already there. Programming, art, animation, sound design, production. Each demanded skills that took years to develop, money to outsource, or extraordinary amounts of time to learn. Most aspiring creators never made it past those barriers. And then came AI. Suddenly, people who had spent years imagining games but lacked the technical means to build them could actually start creating. Not effortlessly, not without challenges, and certainly not always successfully. But the barriers were dramatically lowered. And something interesting happened. A community that had spent years insisting that ideas were worthless because execution was what mattered suddenly began insisting that execution wasn't enough either. Now it was about the process. About putting in the hours. About earning the right to call yourself a developer. About whether you had suffered enough, learned the right skills, or used the approved tools. The goalposts moved. And I think that's where a significant part of the hostility toward AI-assisted development comes from. For a long time, technical expertise wasn't merely a skill. It was also an implicit qualification for belonging. AI challenged that arrangement. And when the natural barriers began to disappear, some of the very people who had celebrated the openness and inclusivity of the indie community suddenly found themselves acting as its gatekeepers. Except this time, they couldn't rely on technical barriers to keep newcomers out. So they turned to social ones. Public shaming. Harassment campaigns. Boycotts. Intimidation. Attempts to make developers afraid of admitting which tools they use. It's a familiar playbook, reminiscent of the worst excesses of cancel culture: when you can't prevent someone from participating, you try to make participation socially unbearable. Ultimately, AI doesn't guarantee good games. It doesn't magically turn every idea into a masterpiece. Taste, judgment, creativity, iteration, and execution still matter enormously. What it changes is who gets a chance to execute. And that's what makes this moment so disruptive. The people who once lacked the means to participate no longer necessarily need anyone's permission, approval, or validation. Social gatekeeping only works when enough people agree to enforce it. And it becomes increasingly difficult to enforce when the people being excluded can simply create, publish, and reach players anyway. The gates were forced open. And no amount of shouting at the people walking through them will put them back.