I already explained why above. If you were talking about limiting this to explicit resources within the work ( art, code, sound, etc ) then it might be possible, but it would be seriously splitting some legal hairs to have a story and characters copyrighted for 70 years after death in a book and 10 years after creation in a videogame. Again, you're just going to drive talent out of the industry. No professional writer is going to work in videogames if their work is devalued to such an extent simply because it's presented via a particular medium. Not to mention how much fun lawyers would have with games and books that crossed over.
10 years is not literally what I think it should be, but rather I'm trying to get someone to explain to me exactly why it should be life plus 70 years and not some other number. What exactly do you think is a reasonable time for someone to be allowed to exploit a work? Forever?
In your example, the writer has the option of publishing their work as a book, screenplay, or whatever they want, subject to their licence with the game publisher. Why would a cross-over licenced game from a movie have any impact on anything? You'd still not be able to create a new derivative of "House MD - The Game" if it would infringe on the other media. You could freely patch the code and take out all the House MD references though. But then it'd be 10 years old, and nobody would want/be able to play it.
As for worrying about "professional writers" in the games industry, the difference between a professional and an amateur is that the professional gets paid for it. Professional doesn't mean good. Few writers from outside of the games industry write for games.
Taking my example of Snow White, just because Snow White itself is public domain does not give you the right to exploit the Disney images of it. In terms of IP law, this splitting hairs you speak of already exists.
Going back to my previous example, is Warren Robbinett or even Atari/Infogrames/whoever they are now, still making money from Adventure, a 25+ year old game? (The Atari Flashback version is actually a remake of the original) Is there really a reason why it needs his lifetime plus 70 years protection then?
If we were to be fair, we'd have to go back in time, declare everything perpetually copyright and let no derivatives ever be made. What do you think will happen to our society?
The driving people out of an industry you point out, is really a balancing act. Copyright as it stands is not balanced right. Instead of creating an incentive to create new work, you can just create one thing, profit from it for the rest of your life, and for now at least one generation of your kids can too (probably more soon.) Society wants talented people creating as much as we can get them to. So how many years of profit is enough to motivate someone?
Oh and Snow White is ancient yes, but a Christmas Carol isn't, and neither is the Great Gatsby, which isn't even public domain in the USA. I'd give you younger examples, but I can't.