Hmmm, well I think that rather than erasing a game "series" itself I'd go after game ENGINES that came from game series. Things like say Unreal, or GRAW.
Truthfully I feel that the existance of these pre-made engines has destroyed the game industry, leading to what amounts to the same game beint re-released again and again with new skins. Granted there IS a bit more to it than that, but I still preferred the time when each individual game/series developed it's own unique engine. It lead to a greater degree of innovation. On a fundemental level I think games have stagnated due to recycled code.
I see the idea of "universal" game engines as being a failed experiment. Originally the idea was along the lines that by using a customizable toolbox like that you'd wind up with games using those engines becoming much cheaper and easier to develop, resulting in lower prices for the gamers. Like DLC/D2D this failed utterly. Any lowered development costs went purely into profit for the games, just as D2D versions of games don't generally cost any less than games that had been shipped/distributed and packaged.
The big offenders would start with like Quake (now obselete) and then move on to Half Life, Unreal, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter, and of course Havoc Physix (or however they spell it).
