Exactly. That thread on Resetera with 98% of them whining like immature little children about The New Yorker article on The Last of Us showed how oblivious a lot of gamers are to the rest of the world.
Animated shows are niche and not mainstream; none of those shows are drawing in millions of viewers and driving national discussion. That had never been done with a video game adaptation before The Last of Us.
The aggravation for a lot of us about these adaptations, are like you said, the shows/movies are rarely about the source material. It's the name of a character and a totally different story, which is usually terrible. Then people point to these flops as the reason video game shows don't work.
No, they don't work because they're terrible stories that don't draw anything from the actual games. So you alienate the primary audience and you don't draw in new viewers because word of mouth is atrocious and the stories are trash.
If HBO or another network did shows based on Red Dead Redemption, Mass Effect, Bioshock, Silent Hill, etc. and stayed true to the games, they would all be hits.
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