I think it's a free time by age thing?

Would be interesting in your observations on the other side of this, but to me it seems related to those studies showing the trough of happiness is on average the mid-30s to mid-50s.

Most studies ascribe this to being the overlap of peak career hustle, childrearing, taking care of aging parents, and personal health scares all hitting at once.

Putting aside the obvious emotional toll, to me it looks/feels like a dearth of free time. Personally I find it hard to find blocks of time to do anything "for myself" that are more than 30-60 minutes. Video games now, compared to my youth, seem to be much deeper and entail much longer time commitments.

i certainly played less in my 40s/early-50s than i do now, mostly due to lack of free time and other commitments, so i totally understand what you and the parent are saying.

but i never stopped playing entirely. in those 30-60 minutes where my wife would watch her weekly show, i would pick up where i left off in a game. i find most games today are pretty well-designed around being able to play in spurts, even if the game is long + deep.

for longer story games, though, i usually keep a notebook beside me to jot down some context to help me pick it back up if i know it will be a while (mainly because my memory isn't what it used to be).