Changes I Would Like to See in Game Development and Industry

My partner is a game designer and works mainly in Unreal Engine. I was blown away by the power of the visual scripting languages, being able to write complicated procedures with dragging and dropping blocks. Despite not having prior programming experience, she was able to race through learning it and quickly hit walls where she wanted to do more. She learned C++ and Unreals APIs but still encountered walls. It’s interesting because the engine sets up the developer(s) to work on this happy path and all multiplayer frameworks and infrastructure is built in.

My question is, in a age of the game engine duopoly, what needs to be done to enact these asks? Some of them run antithetical to the business model of these engines. Is there an open source-y game engine that she should be learning?

Thanks for reading. Are you a game developer? A hobbyist, small studio, or large? I would love to know what sorts of things you would like to see change, even as a player.