I don't do Windows development, but I remember that used to be the rebuttal from game devs that Linux missed the point about all the ease of use features that Microsoft provided.

Although all the other Direct services are dead, have they not been replaced with new versions?

And it was true at the time, thought the rebuttal would be "use SDL then" -- it did provide equivalent functionality, packaged into a single library.

They were replaced not by new versions, but by new or even existing libraries/subsystems, that are not marketed as Direct anything anymore. Just like alsa or pulse are not marketed as SDL or Open anything either.

TIL, thanks!