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Is it me or did all Sierra quest series follow this pattern:

1) Start with modest EGA text-parser beginnings. Gameplay was basic but fun. Cheap deaths ran rampant as a way to extend the life of the game.

2) Improve the formula over the years. Move from EGA to VGA graphics, text-parser to icons. Develop deeper storylines and richer characters. This usually culminated in the high point of the series, around 1991-1993.

3) Make major changes to the series that alienate long time fans and garner middling reviews from the gaming community at large. This would be most of the games released from late 1994 on. I think the harbinger of this movement was KQ7.

4) With development costs at all time highs, flagging sales cause the whole series to be submarined. The end.

The timeframes differ a year or two for each series, but generally this happened to all of them.

Some of it was the changes in technology and the market, moving from 2D to 3D and from adventures to FPSs and RPGs, but most of it coincides with the sale of Sierra. If you look at the history of MoE you can exactly see this. Mask ended up being a far different game from the one originally envisioned by Roberta Williams, as see lost more and more control over the game.