I'd probably say around 2009-2012 when I was practically jobless.  That's also the time when I platinumed most of my games lol

The PS2, Dreamcast, Xbox, Gamecube, DS, PSP era. 2000-2006ish.

I think I probably had 2 peak periods:

1997-2005: Some absolute gems were available on both PC, PS1 & 2. MGS, Final Fantasy VII, Deus Ex, Morrowind, Oblivion, Star Wars: KoToR, Half-Life 1 & 2, Neverwinter Nights, Call of Duty 1, Starcraft, Age of Empires 1 & 2, GTA 3 trilogy, Counterstrike, God of War etc. After this I had a lull period where I played mainly Oblivion fairly casually installing random mods and quests when I got bored. I still played other games but nothing held my attention up until...

2009-2015: The release of Uncharted 2, Dragon Age Origins, Assassins Creed 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Gran Turismo 5 and Mass Effect 2 sucked me back into gaming in a big way and every year after that had great games with sequels to the above on top of Skyrim, Dishonored, Witcher 2 & 3 and Deus Ex Human Revolution.

I haven't been able to play as much since the birth of my son and when I do it's usually broken into chunks with more breaks. Most of my game time on Fallout 4 was spent on pause! A few games still grab my attention but it's much harder to find time to play.

I don't know. I believe that we're living in a great gaming generation too.

I'm showing my age, but my personal peak years were middle/high school, which for me was 88-95. My friends and I had a PC, NES, and later Sega Genesis, and we played a ton of all 3 growing up. We also loved sports so Tecmo Super Bowl and later NHL 94 were in particular some big time sinks for us. Once in college I stopped console gaming but kept up with PC gaming as much as I could.

Then starting a career, getting married, having kids slowed it all down, as others here have said. But I bring hope for those of you currently in that stage: now that my kids are older and playing games themselves, I've found myself playing more than I have since the mid-90s. We got a Wii later in its life, then got a Switch at launch (and still have a PC) and I've been playing new Nintendo releases and catching up on stuff from the past 20 years as much as I can. I imagine we'll eventually get a PS or Xbox too but maybe not until next gen.

But 2017 being the greatest year for gaming ever? There's a big difference.

I've always been into games, and there may have been a couple years near the end of high school and beginning of college where I played less frequently, but certainly still played to some extent.

Now I've got a full time job and a little girl (another on the way) that takes up a lot of my time, but I still manage a couple hours a day, and more on the weekends.

2005 - 2010 and 2017

Perhaps he wasn't being literal, but more hyperbolic. In any case, if this generation is among the greatest generations, 2017 was perhaps the best year of this generation, then, I wouldn't find so nonsense to think 2017 as the greatest year ever. I wouldn't say it is though... actually I've never thought about which could be the best year..

Anyway, if we had to vote on the best year ever, I'd say that 2017 could be among the top 5 for many though.

I think I've had two such periods: one is pretty short July 2006 when I was a kid. I think I played like 7-8 hours per day almost every day during the whole month.
Second is 2009-2012. In 2009 I was obsessed with MMORPGs and in 2010 I finally opened Counter Strike to myself which turned out in lots of hours spent on it during the next 3 years. I think I haven't played anything except CS during those 3 years. That's why I actually dislike this period in my life. I missed a lot of great games then.
2017 was an all-time low for me I suppose. First half of the year I almost didn't play games at all. And by the end of the year I was only I able to complete 10 games with half of them being 1-2 hours games.