The Running Man

• Deadly entertainment: Like The Running Man, Dungeon Crawler Carl turns survival and death into televised entertainment for a massive audience.
• Anti-establishment protagonist: Ben Richards and Carl are rebellious, angry survivors who refuse to cooperate with the systems controlling them.
• Corporate/media satire: Both criticize commercialized violence, ratings, sponsorships, and audiences consuming suffering as entertainment.
• DCC expands the concept: Dinniman combines the Running Man-style death game with dungeon crawling, RPG/MMORPG mechanics, monsters, loot, and absurd comedy.

Direct adaptation, although quite loose as it took enormous liberties with the source material.

Connell wrote the premise every manhunt story since has used: a man is set loose and hunted by people for whom it is entertainment. King industrialises it. Zaroff hunts one castaway on a private island for his own amusement; the Games Network hunts Ben Richards on live television with a nation calling in sightings for a cash reward. The change is who the audience is, and it is the whole of what the later book is about.

Both from the same author, although originally from a different name. Interestingly, this predates The Running Man and is itself an important precursor to the death-game genre. King was therefore developing these ideas across several works.