It may be true, but it really depends on how new the games you want to play are. I don't consider myself a hardcore player, but I'm perfectly happy with the games I've got on Linux; Overwatch, Diablo 2/3, Warframe, Risk of Rain 2, the Fallout series... they all work fine. It's certainly no Mac when it comes to game compatibility. Really, the only time a game doesn't work on Linux is when the developers go out of their way to ensure you aren't running Linux; with the prevalence of anti-cheat that has indeed seen a bit of a fork in the road. But developers can also whitelist Linux users, and now that the Steam Deck is getting ready to ship to hundreds of thousands of future owners, those devs have an incentive to get their games on Linux.
I think "asterisk" is warranted, since there are still show-stopper games that won't run without their precious kernel-level anti-cheat (sorry professional Valorant players), but the asterisk is shrinking, not growing. It's a fairly small caviat at this point, especially for more casual audiences, and I kinda wonder why it was such a sticking point for Linus. Wine is not a panacea, but if you look at the landscape and see the majority of Windows software running, I think there's hope in that.
I think "asterisk" is warranted, since there are still show-stopper games that won't run without their precious kernel-level anti-cheat (sorry professional Valorant players), but the asterisk is shrinking, not growing. It's a fairly small caviat at this point, especially for more casual audiences, and I kinda wonder why it was such a sticking point for Linus. Wine is not a panacea, but if you look at the landscape and see the majority of Windows software running, I think there's hope in that.