3DO killed Might and Magic, but it really has to be laid at the door of Jon van Caneghem. Like Richard Gariott over at Origin Systems, van Caneghem wanted extra capital to develop ever larger, more complex games. Turning to 3DO was a lot like turning to EA, in that respect: you got the money, along with the need to produce hits and a whole raft of VPs who made decisions for you. I've been given to understand that 3DO's CEO forced M&M VIII out the door early, and gave M&M IX to a team of his own choosing that had never been involved with New World Computing before. Be that as it may, M&M IX was pretty bad--good only in its combat AI, really. The rest wasn't a patch on the older titles, particularly M&M III, IV/V, and VII.
