Steam Deck is literally designed to be picked up and play.

The old games never went away, play them.

It's also possible you're just aging out of it.

Just like any other hobby it's not always meant to be a lifetime activity. If you're not feeling it you can stop, and it will always be there when you come back. Don't get FOMO'd.

You’re just depressed and blaming outside sources. Windows is fine, so is Linux. There are more fantastic games out there then ever before.

Finally bought a couple of controllers to play vidya games with my partner. I was a bit afraid of being very limited in the games we would be able to play due to Linux (I remember the times when you kinda just had the choice between rogue, supertuxkart and valve's source-based games), but actually wine + dxvk3 (and other tech like libinput, wayland etc) have gotten so good that everything just works with minimum fuss. export WINEPREFIX=~/Games/$GAME; wine ./install.exe; ~/Games/install_dxvk.sh; wine ./run.exe and off you go.

We binged It Takes Two over the weekend with only very minor issues - one particular particle effect was way bigger and brighter than intended, and the game itself was meh.

We also jumped between a bunch of NES & N64 classics, because emulators are great now as well, with plug-and-play controller support etc.

As on overall point of sympathy, I've also gotten a lot more picky lately as to the games I've been wanting to invest time into compared to before.

Remember you don't have to always go for the latest and greatest thing everyone is talking about. If you're looking for a snappy experience, just get something like a DSLite with a flash cart, and get game library backups and mods to your hearts content.

*That isn't to say I haven't found games that are just easy to pick up, get going without fuss, keep me engaged for just simple fun. One such example is TMNT Shredder's Revenge, you could call it a spiritual successor to the multiplayer arcade cabinet Ninja Turtles games.

Moving on is alway a viable option.