In order to avoid alienating the highly devoted existing playerbase, while still widening appeal, EA would release their own 'hyper-realistic' tileset, which consists entirely of scaled down photos. The results of this are about what you'd expect, and nobody uses it outside of extreme challenge games.
To recover from so disastrous a mistake, corporate decides to avenge some good will by adapting Masterwork (V9.6c) as a semi-official DLC, for half the usual price per modified (but not new) RAW entry. The sale, though generous, is a disaster because of the continued existence of the free original version,which remains in active development. Growing frustration with the game's management then leads them to do something drastic to re-earn player respect: stop working on patching features and focus on improving the increasingly cumbersome program's performance.
As a part of this widely acclaimed measure DF's RAW system is scrapped in favor of a closed source, "more streamlined" approach. Other measures include abstracting the health and injury system, removing most thermodynamic calculations, and removing the (still unfinished) beekeeping mechanics. 38 hours, 42 minutes, and 49 seconds later, the last post is made on these forums, and the official forums slow in activity significantly.
With DF thoroughly dead, EA attempts to reboot the franchise with Slaves to Armok: Chapter 3: Dwarven Combat: Histories of Struggle and Honor, An over the shoulder massively multiplayer hack and slash. The game is released for Xbox One, PS4, and (surprisingly) the Wii U; and is received with generally positive but underwhelming sales and reviews. A PC port is promised, but never delivered. Corporate kills the game shortly after due to the generally mediocre gains it produces.