What is the gatekeeping in the games industry?

Quality free game engines have been available for years. Being a game developer has gotten so accessible that the market is completely jammed with titles and discoverability is very difficult.

I get the feeling from your post that you feel “ability to write code” was something put in place by “gatekeepers” but not only is that not what “gatekeepers” means, but software developers make up a small part of a game’s production team.