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A few days ago, Cubicle 7 Games announced that they had to cancel their planned 2nd Edition of The One Ring, because licensing negotiations had failed.
A lot of classic roleplaying games go out of print because licensing changes-- West End Games Star Wars, Serenity, Firefly, now The One Ring and Adventures in Middle-Earth.
The people with the skills to write/film and publish/produce a story are not necessarily the ones with the ability to create a good game of that story. The people with the skills and cold hard cash to negotiate licensing are not necessarily either one.
Now you could argue that creating a new completely-different set of rules, adventures, and so on each time these change hands spurs creativity. But it's not like players can compare these approaches when most or all are out-of-print due to licensing issues.
So at one extreme, straight-up adaptations of popular fictional settings run into licensing shenanigans, and some players avoid them because they don't know if the rules'll still be supported in 5 years.
At the other extreme, straight-up adaptations of history aren't as widespread as ones with bizarre fantasy twists.
There has to be a better way.
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