For projects, yes… most of the things I want to build don’t need to go fast, so the pi zero is amazing and so so small. If you are just talking little cheap computer to stash somewhere, then no. I do think it would be neat if someone made a SBC N100 in the “credit card” size.
For gaming, I honestly agree. Things are better with Lutris but running programs in their native OS is always going to be a better experience. Still, I think it’s very cool that you can run any of that in Linux. Valve is making some awesome progress with that…