technically, the Netflix series was an adaptation of the Witcher novel.

I also would not count the Witcher, unless they do enough seasons that they outgrow the books and move into the game story.

Lol, seriously guys? Bunch of fucking nitpickers.

I'm going to say that no game to movie adaptations count, since not a single one of them even tries to follows the games storyline. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense.....

The reason why I say that it is not a game adaptation is because of how things played out: Book released in 1993. First video game released 2007. Series released 2019. Both the game and the show had novels as source material.

If you count Witcher, then you'd also have to count Lord of the Rings because it followed the same path: Books were released first. Then a bunch of video games were released in the 80s and 90s, then the first live action film came in 2001. And I could probably dig up a bunch of other examples where novels spawned adaptations of games and movies.

The key component of being a "video game adaptation" is if a video game is the source material. In the case of TLoU, it is. In the case of Witcher and LotR, it is not (a novel is the source being adapted for the screen).

Difference being that the driving popularity factor (what gets shit made) was the videogame series for the witcher and the book series for LotR. It's apples to oranges. Was there even any LotR games besides text based shit before the movies?

There's also enough commonality between the novel/game for it to be considered either or, while the only successful LotR games came out FOLLOWING the movie and were a carbon ripoff of the movie, not the novels. If anything, the games were a movie -> game adaptation, not the other way around.

e: I stand corrected, there was one for the SNES that I'd never heard of. Point stands though.

This post was edited by jadeoshbogosh on Mar 10 2020 09:39am

I don't deny that that the popularity of the game was what led to the novel being adapted. But that does not change the fact that it was the novel that got adapted.

Even the show's creator insists that the distinction is meaningful, not just semantics: https://www.ign.com/articles/why-netflixs-the-witcher-adapted-the-books-and-not-the-video-games-geralt-season-2

This post was edited by Kayeto on Mar 10 2020 09:50am

I understand there's a clear distinction, but it's foolish to say the game has nothing, or wasn't the majority driving force behind the adaption, thus making it a successful game->show adaptation, as the success of the show hinges on that fan-bases approval.

Seeing as The Last of Us has books that pre-date the game, is the entire argument moot, as this doesn't count as a game adaptation either? I mean.... come the fuck on lol.

Except tlou is saying it's an adaptation of the game and they hired the game director. Not to mention the witcher books vs games are vastly different. The games are basically set after the books. So the previous example of lotr isn't relevant.

It's more like if the hobbit was the only book written, then a game dev made the lotr games, then a show was developed based on the hobbit and you tried to call it an adaptation of the lotr games. It just isn't accurate.

Like I said, I don't count the witcher until they start using the game as source material.

Edit: also tlou definitely doesn't have a book that predates the game.

This post was edited by Blah58 on Mar 10 2020 10:54am

I'd hazard a guess that before the netflix release, the vast majority of witcher fans were fans because of the game and not the books.

Sure, so far they've adapted the books. But you can't argue you didnt see any strong influences from the game throughout the series - non more so than Geralt himself, his voice and look, not to mention his 'mmm'

It's also incredibly popular and likely to get recurrent seasons that will no doubt inevitably venture from the books and cross over into the game lore.

They're never crossing into the game lore. They don't have the rights to it and the project head already said she is stopping with lady of the lake.