I'd say the first one to do it well was James Bond 007. But that's the reverse of the question :D
Short Answer: Tolkien and Asimov universes, specifically First Age of Middle Earth and Foundation Age of Asimov's universe (later periods in both cases: post-Battle of Sudden Flame, and Post Foundation and Earth)
Isaac Asimov's Foundation, which now has a great TV show based on it by David S. Goyer (Also the creator of Sandman TV adaptation, and the Blade trilogy). But what's missing is a game based on the books, and I think it could shine in a way that The Witcher 3 has as an open world masterpiece. Taking pieces of the galaxy, and creating new stories within them. Right now, the closest thing we have to a good Foundation game franchise is Xenosaga, which contains a lot of Asimovian elements from Foundation and other books. My dream dev team for this one would be Nintendo's own Monolithsoft studios with an unprecedented budget... while I'd prefer the budget go toward a Xenogears remake, I'd be absolutely fine with this one, too.
While Lord of the Rings doesn't have a worthy game, it does have numerous games that were still quite good from across the years. Even the bad ones were still kinda fun to play. But, if I had to pick a book, it would be an open world game series based on the first age of Middle Earth, there is still so much to explore there, and I think a game is the best way to do it. The second age is interesting, many people hate Rings of Power, but I'm intrigued by the world they're building for the second age - I also really liked what they did with the Sauron reveal, by transforming "Annatar" into an epithet rather than a name, otherwise it would have been too obvious - as a guy who has read through the 12 volumes of the History of Middle Earth multiple times, I was still not 100% (maybe 95%) which one was Sauron. I wouldn't mind seeing video games based in and around that series as well, but my preference is for the first age, a game series from The Battle of Sudden Flame to the end of the War of Wrath. Like Witcher, have the games and expansions be snapshots, perhaps surrounding a dark elf... just rip the Witcher games off in a lot of ways. CD Projekt Red would be the obvious dream team for this one.
Asimov and Tolkien are probably the two authors I've read the most, and each one amounts to millions or words read and re-read by each of them. Both universes mean a lot to me. And there's a lot more to the first age than just The Silmarillion and the Return of the King appendices. There is a series called The History of Middle Earth which includes the Primitive Legendarium (The Book of Lost Tales) along with the lays, and other tellings of the first age - you could say multiple versions of The Silmarillion. So you can see the development of Tolkien's thought on this until it got to the story we know, that was finalized late in his life, and posthumously by his son, and fellow Inkling, the late Christopher Tolkien. These are actually my favourite books by Tolkien, but I don't recommend them to anyone except the biggest fans, because they're more for people who already know The Silmarillion inside out, and want a deeper and wider look at everything - I'd say even more so than The Expanded Robot series over I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (again, another series I wouldn't recommend to anyone unless they were very familiar with I, Robot and the earlier stages of the Asimov universe).
I describe myself as a little dose of toxic masculinity.
