what exactly happened to bazzite? I've seen so much hype around the distro and buzz among normal people, that it almost became THE normal gamer distro, so much so it completely overshadowed nobara and whatever other gamer gimmick distros are out there

Its fine and did not die. In fact its growing as always, even with "drama". https://github.com/ublue-os/countme/blob/main/growth_bazzite...