A Tale of Two Pyramids

How the games industry is moving from a High Pyramid of exclusivity to a Wide Pyramid of creativity—powered by "game bands"

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The games industry is reshaping itself from what I call the High Pyramid: steep, exclusive, and driven by technical mastery—into the Wide Pyramid: open, creative, and accessible.

• The High Pyramid defined the early decades of gaming. Complex tools and specialized knowledge meant that only a few could make games, and the gap between amateur and professional output was enormous.

• The Wide Pyramid is emerging as tools become easier and more powerful. Its base is vastly larger, containing hundreds of millions of potential creators, and its height is smaller—meaning the quality gap between hobbyists and professionals is narrowing.

• Game Bands—small, highly creative teams of up to 10 people—will become the cultural equivalent of rock bands in music. They’ll define their own styles, connect directly with players, and work efficiently with new AI-powered platforms.

• The relationship between creators and players will shift from brand to band. Players will follow their favorite creators like fans follow artists, not just for what they make, but for who they are.

• The big question for today’s professionals: Are we clinging to the old pyramid, or embracing the new one?

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“The hardest part of making games used to be getting them to work. Now it’s getting anyone to notice.”

That line has stuck with me. Granted, it’s never been easy to get people to notice your games, but in recent years that challenge has increased dramatically. The industry is shifting from old structures—what I call the High Pyramid of exclusivity—toward something wider and far more open.

The High Pyramid was narrow at the base, steep on the sides, and with only a small group at the pointy top. Few had access to the tools, teams, or funding to make games. Turning an idea into a product was expensive and slow.

At the top of the High Pyramid were the big studios and the most experienced teams, creating the highest-quality and most commercially successful games. At the bottom were the modders, hobbyists, and small indies experimenting with whatever tools they could find.

It wasn’t by choice—it reflected an era when complexity and cost created steep barriers.

But that’s now changing—fast.

We’re now entering the era of the Wide Pyramid. Its base is far broader, containing vastly more creators. Where the High Pyramid globally represented maybe hundreds of thousands of professionals and a few million hobbyists, the Wide Pyramid will eventually include hundreds of millions of people creating interactive experiences in one form or another.

At the same time, its height—the gap between the lowest- and highest-quality output—is shrinking. Quality at the base is steadily moving closer to quality at the top. Small teams, and even individuals, can now produce games that rival professional studios in craft and ambition.

If you make, fund, or even follow games, this shift will redefine your world. AI and new tools aren’t replacing creativity—they’re amplifying it. They compress production time, remove technical barriers, and free creators to focus on what truly matters: vision, emotion, and play.

In short, we’re moving from an industry defined by restricted access and high barriers to one defined by creative abundance and accessibility. And that changes everything—from how we build games to how we discover them, fund them, and play them.

The Rise of the Game Bands

As the Wide Pyramid takes shape, we’re seeing a new kind of creative unit emerge: what I like to call game bands.

Like rock bands in music, these are small, focused groups of creators who come together to express themselves through interactive entertainment. They rely on shared vision, close collaboration, and efficient use of new technology.

A typical game band might be five to ten people, each with their own specialty: gameplay direction, art, animation, storytelling, sound, or style. Together they can produce something that feels personal and distinct, yet polished enough to reach an audience.

We’re already seeing glimpses of this future. Small teams like those behind Valheim, Hades, Content Warning, Balatro, and PEAK have built global hits with minimal resources and short timelines—showing what’s possible when creativity meets accessible technology.

Players don’t just play their games; they follow their journeys, their development blogs, their behind-the-scenes content. The relationship feels personal, more like following a band than buying from a corporation.

And these projects are reaching hundreds of thousands of dedicated players, sometimes millions. These games don’t have giant budgets or marketing machines behind them, but they connect deeply through creativity, storytelling, and distinctive ideas.

Over the next decade, we’ll see many thousands of these game bands forming. Some long-term, others for a single project, and each exploring their own creative direction, much like musicians forming a new sound.

What will define their success isn’t technology, but creativity, personality, and connection. As tools become easier to master, originality becomes the true differentiator. Players will start to follow these creators not just for their games, but for their voices, styles, and ideas.

From Brand to Band

As more people start creating games, the relationship between players and creators will change too.

In the High Pyramid era, players mostly connected with studios or franchises, names like Blizzard, Rockstar, Supercell, or Nintendo. The people behind the games were largely invisible. But in the Wide Pyramid, that connection will increasingly shift from brand to band.

Players will follow their favorite creators as much as their favorite games, caring about who makes them—their values, process, and stories. It won’t just be about what they play, but who made it. Game bands will need to be as good at community building, storytelling and marketing as they are at game creation.

At the same time, the line between player and creator will blur. Many players will experiment with making their own games, just as millions of people have tried playing an instrument or writing a song. Some will do it for fun; others will discover a new creative outlet they never expected.

Far from everyone will become a professional developer, and most game bands will inevitably fail commercially. Demand will not grow just because there is endless more content to experience. Most players will still prefer polished experiences from the creators they admire. But accessible tools will invite far more people to try—to express themselves through interactive experiences, even on a small scale.

This shift is cultural, not just technical. It changes how people see games—from products they consume to expressions they can participate in. Over time, that will redefine what we mean when we talk about “the games industry.”

Looking Ahead

Step back and compare the two pyramids, and it’s clear we’re in one of the biggest transitions the games industry has ever seen.

The High Pyramid was built around restricted access—to tools, funding, and knowledge. It was inevitable for its time and produced incredible work, but it was also limited to a relatively small group of people who had the skills and resources to enter and climb it.

The Wide Pyramid is built around creativity and accessibility. Its base is expanding rapidly, and while many can already turn ideas into playable experiences, many more will be able to soon. That’s where we’re heading—toward a world where making interactive entertainment becomes a normal form of creative expression.

In this new world, some creators will thrive, others will struggle to stay relevant. The Wide Pyramid will reshape every part of our ecosystem—development, funding, marketing, and talent.

And then there’s the sheer abundance of it all. The industry has always produced more games than players can possibly experience—but we’ve seen nothing yet. The challenge has never been scarcity of content, but scarcity of attention. Playtime itself is finite—no matter how much we create, the number of hours each player has available doesn’t grow. Discovery, curation, and trust will become even more critical.

In the end, if history shows anything, it’s that change brings opportunity. We’re entering a period that will unleash creativity on a scale we’ve never seen. For those of us working in games today, the question isn’t whether the Wide Pyramid will happen—it’s how we’ll respond. Will we cling to old structures, or start experimenting with different, more expressive ways to create?

In the years ahead, the most exciting stories in games will be about people: small teams, empowered by new tools, redefining the interactive experiences that resonate with the audiences.

The pyramid is changing shape—and it’s inviting all of us to climb, create, and play in entirely new ways.

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This essay is part of my ongoing series, Connecting the Pixels, where I explore how technology, creativity, and culture intersect in the future of interactive entertainment.