There are many game genres that indeed offer very little. But I've been gaming for a few decades myself and I can easily list as many games that have influenced me greatly, than I can books.
And I read a lot. A lot. I finished the entire Wheel of Time series in a month flat. That's reading 10 hours a day straight, every day.
I think you either have had very bad luck finding good games or you simply aren't the right type of person to enjoy them for some reason.
The Wheel of Time series is the greatest series of books I've ever read that had massive influence on me. Yet it doesn't hold a freaking candle to some of the game series I've played. Doesn't even come remotely close to being as impactful for me.
Harry Potter? Super awesome, but again - plenty of games on my list that far surpass it.
Song of Ice and Fire? Same deal. Excellent stuff, but games do it better.
Lord of the Rings? Same deal. Luckily there are games about the books too, so it's a bit of a hard case.
The fact that games allow you to visually interact with the story, with how things play out, is so, so, so much more impactful than simple written words which are much more one dimensional in their impact.
Books take a long time to say something. They have to translate every feeling, ever moment of body language, every weather anomaly, every sound, every object into words that flow properly enough to allow the reader to imagine them.
Games can say 10 pages worth of written text in a single high quality scene.
I love books, but don't pretend like books don't have HUGE issues of their own. In a book - the author is at the mercy of his own writing skills and the intelligence of the reader to figure out what is meant.
In a game, you can make it a lot more blunt using visuals and sound and gameplay. You can convey things that most authors never manage through their writing.
I most definitely consider games to be equal to books. Flat out Superior in many ways. While I also consider books to be superior to games in other ways.
But all things considered, I consider them to hold a very similar amount of weight in both entertainment value and emotional impacts.