Yeah. On the one hand: a tempting thought.
Same with so many other great stories we know and love, and would like to see transferred into a "playable experience".

But on the other hand: what's the point in "re-enacting" a known "detective on the case" story (or anything similar), when you know everything about that story, already?

When people ask me whether I've seen "Titanic", I always joke and answer: "nope! Why bother? I already know that the ship sinks in the end."

So - let's change the story (or its details) to make it more interesting (by being less foreseeable) for fans of "The Maltese Falcon", etc.?
Do that and you'll get exactly the kind of reactions, that you can see in this thread...

Yeah, but what's the point in changing a known story? If all they want is to make something new out of a well known story, why not create a new one inspired by that classic one? It would be way more respectful to the original author and their material, and way more creative.

However, if someone is going to adapt something, they might as well stay as faithful to it as possible, otherwise they will understandably piss off fans of the original.

To make it more interesting to play? Because you don't know already whodunnit, and howtheydiddit?
Honestly: I could equally well ask: "what's the point in playing a game, that's following a known story?"

Absolutely. I'm all for new stories. That's why I wrote the above paragraph.
I loved "The Raven" (despite it featuring some aggrevating bugs): https://www.gog.com/en/game/the_raven_remastered
And that was a new story (yet clearly inspired by Christie's work).

But that's the thing: "The Raven" was "inspired by" - not licensed.
Of course: it couldn't have been licensed - because there exists no Constable Anton Jakob Zellner in the Christie license.

It is a completly new game, standing on its own license.
Even if certain aspects of Constable Zellner resembled a certain Belgian detective.

Nobody can keep you from creating something that is "inspired by" "license X", but you can't simply slap the name of "license X" on it, when you're done.

So - the reasonable thing to do is to purchase a license, right?
Well - not exactly, because then you are pretty limited in what exactly you can do within that license.

This new game ("Murder on the O.E.") has a new detective? And some flashback scenes that play in the US?
Obviously, "Agatha Christie Ltd." (the license holders) had no problem with that...but, let's say Microids would have created a completely new case for Poirot?
"Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Case of the stuffed Parrot", or similar.
Would "Agatha Christie Ltd." have given their ok to that, too?
Hardly imaginable.
Because license holders have to protect their existing licenses and what is connected to them.

So, if you want freedom in your creative process, let yourself be inspired from existing licenses as much as you want (without naming names, of course) - but don't go down the license path.

And if you want to slap a license on your product, because that license promises name recognition and some extra sales on an overcrowded market - do it, but do it knowing, that you can't simply create something new.

That's the crux, (game) authors have to deal with.

Wall of text, but what I really want to say is:
nobody kept Microids from doing basically this exact game (but scrubbed of all A. Christie/Poirot refrences) and release it under the name of "Joanna Locke and the Train Murder Mystery" or something similar.
But they wanted the "Agatha Christie" license.
And if you get a license, you aren't free anymore in your creativity.

A lot of people here (fans of the original or not) would probably love a new twist to the old story (or at least not mind it), they also wouldn't mind the transferring to the present...but what they really see as a slap in their faces is the addition of a female(!) detective. The shock! The horror...let's scream bloody murder!!!

Well, in order to make it playable, the developer would have to...

... either deviate from the original for a linear storyline (ie Vertigo)...

... or...

... add a number of variations on the clues and outcomes.

The first scenario is the easiest (if they know how to tell a good story), but leaves the developer open to criticism on "changing the source material."

The second is probably more forgiving on the "changing the source material" end, but mechanically much more challenging -- randomizing multiple plotlines and outcomes.

Or... just use the character -- Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe -- as Frogwares has used Holmes.

Whatever the case, I'd love to play the cases!

If you say so...

Well, since you decided to so bravely call me out too - I would consider adding a new secondary male protagonist equally pointless. It's just that for "some reason" these kind of changes (shoehorning in a new character into a classic story) always seem to be about female characters (Hobbit's Tauriel is me "favorite" example of messing up a beloved story this way).

There's a difference between changing something in adaptation to make a story work in a different medium (like for example changing the identity of the culprit, or having the culprit along with appropriate clues be randomly chosen for every playthrough like in Ripper) and messing with a classic story because of a misguided, arrogant and, for me at least, highly annoying, maybe even detestable idea that the enduring, iconic story needs "updating for a modern audience". We've even seen not so long ago Christie's actual books getting the 1984 treatment for the sake the modern audience.

When it's not related to messing with something established for the sake of an agenda I don't care one way or the other about the gender of a protagonist in a game (or movie/book/comic etc.) and it would never even cross my mind to pass on a game or dislike it because the hero is a woman.

That's it for me, if you want to further imply I'm a sexist pig, knock yourself out. It's not like you even have the decency to actually quote me in the first place. A "silent" screen grab will do too,after all...

I still don't see anyone saying bad things about women in the image you attached.

I don't know Breja, but if I just take what he wrote without trying to interpret it, it seems to me that what bothered him were the unnecessary additions of these characters who happened to be women. Like I said though, I don't know him, so I could be wrong.

I feel so tired could be talking about the unnecessary gender swapping that writers sometimes apply to some characters in these kinds of adaptations, but I could also be wrong, his post was too short to really be sure.

As for me, I was trying to criticize the addition of contemporary social issues in adaptations of classic stories, where I think they have no place. I also tried to do it in a sarcastic way, and ended up expressing my thoughts rather poorly.
In the last part of my comment that you highlighted, I was simply expressing my disliking of any kind of useless modifications, in my opinion, that can be found in some adaptations, nothing more.

Again, I don't think it has anything to do with the addition of female characters per se for most people, but more simply the addition of a character at all.

Also, I should add that I was expecting to have an interesting conversation with someone with a different opinion than mine on the topic at hand, and while your first response was excellent, I must admit that this one leaves a little to desire.

Several screenshots combined into one was simply way easier done (and bore no risk of scrambling the formatting of the post, by putting too many "quoting links" into it).
That's all there was to it.
Now untwist your knickers again.