Trial and error implies that they're not intentionally changing things, which I earnestly believe they are. The problem is that these writers that do always think that they know better.

The game-to-movie mistakes article was pretty good. I'm not exactly in agreement with all of the author's points but that is kind of related to the main issue that I personally see in adaptations - this is still a bit of a trial-and-error type thing. The recent "Halo" and "Resident Evil" adaptations were fucking awful, but that has nothing to do with their connection to their respective games and almost solely due to abysmally stupid scripts and writing. In Resident Evil particularly I felt all of the actors were at least good, with Lance Reddick as the obvious best, but great actors can't make up for terrible scripts and writing.
By and large, I feel that all different styles ofadaptations are valid; it's just a matter of picking a lane and then finding the sweet spot. Unfortunately, Hollywood ignores the nuance and navigating the complexities and instead focuses solely on achieving a mass-market appeal (i.e. more money) regardless of whether that is in service of respecting the property or not.

Interesting, no mention at all of Bruce Straley, co-director of some of the Uncharted games and The Last of Us Pt 1 with Druckmann. Straley was not involved with TLoU part 2 though. Probably has nothing at all to do with Straley advocating for unions in the game industry.