Mods, and the fact that to play with anyone more than 20 metres away from you, you have to pay something every month.
Steam sales
It wasn’t any specific game for me. I grew up with a PC and always saw how much more they could do than any console. And when I discovered emulation, it was pretty much over for anything that wasn’t PC.
Similar. Had a Colecovision when I was a kid, followed by a second hand Commodore Vic-20. Hands down the Colecovision had better graphics, but all you could do is play the games you bought or shared. Next was a Tandy 1000 TX, and I don’t think I ever looked back.
I did have an original Gameboy, that I bought with my own money, and that was pretty cool, but still it was simply a matter of playing the games they sold you. In the shareware scene of the 90’s, even the Gameboy was horrendously limiting.
For me it’s never been a performance issue. Most of the time I’ve been using old PCs, and the latest console would technically be more powerful (back to Colecovision vs. Commodore Vic 20). It was a matter of flexibility and variety.
Every game with good mods.
The Orange Box