One of my main heuristics for if a videogame is worth playing is if it only works as a game. As in if you transported it out of the medium, it loses a lot. The adaption can still be good, hell, the game can still be good but I don't think they're interesting in the art form that is videogames.
My main example here'd be TLOU. The netflix adaption was pretty much a hit because of course it is. The story is entirely linear, it's very clearly subdivided into combat -> exploration -> story, allthough sometimes the order changes. It's all polished to a mirror sheen, the gameplay is fun, hell, the brutality ties in thematically instead of being a back-of-the-box selling point to edgelords (allthough it is also that) but functionally it could be a movie or a series and it is and it works.
So whats your videogame that only works as a videogame, and most importantly, why? I think Disco Elysium is the free bingo square for this community on this one and the reasons are endless, but I'll start with something that surprised me recently: the new Hitman games.
They have movies but they're shit, all the comics and tie in novels I assume are for people into hitman lore because the story isn't really anything to write home about - mostly existing to get you to next location - but the the experience of playing hitman can't be recreated in another format because the interactivity is such a big part of it. I mean sure, "shoot someone in the head" basically always works. It's one of my main criticisms about a lot of games I have that give you a whole host of options to tackle a mission which all pale in effectiveness to "have a bit of aim and do headshot with the starter pistol" but somehow it's way more fun to hoist rich dipshits by their own petard.
I'm being a bit intentionally cheeky in this thread but yeah this is kind of my point.
You can make a movie about a game without it being a let's play featuring all the mechanics, in fact most wouldn't call a let's play a movie. Something about the game has to be changed to make it into a new medium or else it'd still be the videogame.
It's a bit of a ship of theseus thing, how many pieces of the game can you adapt before it's not an effective adaptation?
There is so much potential in the idea of interactive movies that even something such as a "rogue-like" movie theater would be kinda fun depending on the movie.
Doing collective quick time events, dialogue options, item pick ups , or even simply choosing which direction to go would be really cool. If you wanted to be fun and creative with it, different seating arrangements can determine which part of the narrative you vote on. Or collective screenings can shape a community story that is specifically created by that group. I'm imagining things like this can foster discussions and leading to new perspectives by asking the question "Oh, how did your group's run turn out?"
Unfortunately this would only work in a society and culture that isn't pushing greed and individualism at every angle of our lives.
Like that one black mirror episode?
Many such cases