Gamecube-PS2-Xbox 360 Era. It was a time when game developmental costs had come down a bit, the demand for games was pretty steady, and the market wasn't oversaturated. It allowed AAA devs to make some big creative swings and return a steady profit.

There's a lot of different genres that are popular today where you can point to a game from that era as the progenitor. Stuff like Resident Evil 4 for the third person action shooter, Devil May Cry for spectacle RPGs, Katamari Damacy and Pikmin for uh...whatever the hell they are.

I don't think AAA has ever been as creative as they were during that period. For over a decade now, pretty much all creativity in games has come from indies, with AAA being comprised of copycats.

When Factorio was injected into my dopamine receptors. Time has been a blur ever since.

The time when OP was a kid/teenager and nostalgia hits the hardest.

The period during which working in game development could be considered somewhat theoretically reasonable to pursue as a career.