I think in a lot of ways this discussion is missing the OP's target, which was the genre of "young adult" literature, TV and films.

Young Adult literature typically features protagonists in their teens to early twenties (but doesn't have to), and usually contain elements of science fiction and/or fantasy (but doesn't have to). However, almost uniformly they explore complex political/sociological themes within the context of an isolated cultural setting (often almost entirely composed of adolescents). Harry Potter, the Hunger Games, the Divergent series, are all high-profile examples from recent years, but it also covers literary classics like Treasure Island, the Lord of the Flies, and The Giver, to name just a few.

In general, I'd agree with the OP that I've seen few games that fall into this genre. While many games are aimed at teens, and more than a few contain teenage protagonists and take place in settings with elements of science fiction or fantasy... I don't see many exploring sociopolitical themes or interpersonal relationships that the genre centers round, nor placing the same type of cultural restrictions on their protagonists.

The first two Farcry games had adult ex military protagonists but, Farcry 3 and 4 had young tweenies thrust into horrible civil war situations whilst also struggling with family or romance issues Basically they are coming of age dramas..

The fable series usually have a kid as the main protagonist in a fantasy oppressed society. Similar to Farcry 3 and 4 but in a fantasy setting. Ok as the games progress you grow up and stuff but you pretty much start as a child.

The recent Tomb Raider reboot has Lara as some kind of early 20s university student taking on a banana republic dictator.

Some of the Assassins Creed games the protagonist comes over as a teenage / early 20s stuck in an adult world whilst some of them he seems much older. These to me fall into the classic historian adventure.

If any of these were done as a film I'd expect they'd be some kind of teeny adventure romp with a 12 certificate (I know there has been Tomb Raider films but I'm talking specifically about the Square reboot).

Whilst some of the protagonists in the GTA series are adult career criminals a few of them have featured young street punks struggling to make ends meet.

most of this tends to cover my question quite well.

For clarification purposes (I apologize for not doing this earlier), I did mean the 14-21 market when I referred to the YA age group.

"Perhaps you meant to ask why aren't there more games covering these topics. Which is a very different type of question. If that's the case, beware the target market is mostly the same as current games, so they would be against a lot of strong, established competition."

I still say that Japanese games, RPGs in particular are all pretty much the equivalent of YA fiction. I don't think the quality is as high*, but a few random samples

Valkyria Chronicles:

Young teen protagonists: Check

Fantasy Sci-fi setting: check

Interpersonal relationships: deals with character death

Socio-political themes: It's basically world war II, deals with racism, even has internment camps. (I wouldn't say it handles any of that all that deftly, but its there)

Final Fantasy X

Young teen protagonists: check

Sci fi setting: check

Interpersonal relationships: standard teen romance

Socio political themes: check

*There's a lot of dreck in the category of YA novels, but the good ones have better stories and are more adept at handling socio-political themes than any of the games.

cover political or sociological themes.

That's a bit hard to cover in a AAA as it induces risk, and AAA is afraid of risks and it can hurt its demographics, but if you can look away from AAA, there's always games such as Papers, Please.

Within the AAA realm, there are a few solid games that have studied sociological themes, but they are not the norm (yet).

The problem here is that the most diverse audience (mobile) is also the one that has the most fickle attention span, and to truly exploit more complex themes, you'd need to go the extra mile to get that degree of immersion. I feel that the majority of console and pc gamers are younger than the mobile market and that the reason that brings them to play is still 'quick dirty fun' most of the time. I'm not saying there's no room for what you're suggesting, all I'm saying is that it can't dominate the market given the current 'demand'.

There are plenty of AAA games with socio-political themes. The Bioshock series, for example. Deus Ex series, Fallout series. Red Dead Redemption. You could probably count the Metal Gear series as well, though its certainly not a shining example.

Now that said, none of those are YA, as the above all tend to have older male protagonists, or custom protagonists, and tend to not have any YA style relationships. And one big thing with games, is AAA tends to skew towards a white male blank slate, as opposed to YA which tends to be a bit more even gender wise.