I think Obscure should be back again in the end, as it's possible to buy it on Gamersgate

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-OBS/obscure

Colin and TOCA are not possible, just as Wishbone said.

Not that it's likely, but new license agreements could be signed. Perhaps instead of paying a large upfront fee, they could offer the rights-holders a percentage of each sale. It makes no sense to bury a game when all parties involved could profit from it.

And Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising is for sale on GreenManGaming.
It doesn't make sense to you, but it probably makes sense to the rights holders. The thing about licensed games is also that they tend to be released again and again as full games with incremental updates over the previous installment. They generally want people to buy the new ones, not the old ones.

Why not profit off the old and the new simultaneously?

I have no problem downloading Chessmaster 9000 via either the downloader or browser (unless the browser is getting 1.1 GB of zeroes, but I kind of doubt that... I'll know in a few minutes).
They might think that the old will cannibalize the sales of the new, and as such give a lesser profit if the price of the old is lower.

EDIT: setup launches fine and passes the integrity check no matter how I download it.

Because if people can choose between an older version at $5.99, and a newer version, that is virtually identical to the older one, at $49.99, then they might make the unfortunate choice (from the publisher's POV) and buy the older, cheaper version. Very few people would choose to buy both. Therefore, the availability of older licensed titles is a direct threat to the sales of newer titles with the same license.

Just tested the download with the android browser and is comming allright.
Pulling it out with no warning sucks anyway. I hate when GOG is doing this.

Possible, it could be how their system handles things so when a game is removed from the storefront it's download link is also removed probably because their shared or whatnot and so are unavailable till GOG staff create a hidden link that is not tied to the store and is only accessible to those who have the game tied to their libraries. Granted this is just a theory and pure speculation but it's a plausible one.

I just tried downloading also and it works fine. Now I am glad, I bought it in last promotion :)
but upset that gog didn't make the effort to inform us of the change, I always liked how gog used to communicate

Just to be sure, I tried downloading with both the browser (firefox) and the GOG downloader. Had no problem with any game I tried, except Chessmater 9000. We'll see if GOG fixes it tomorrow.

It's not that GOG always know about such things before they actually have to pull it down immediately.

It's Sunday and most of, if not all of, the staff are off, plus this is something for the PR guy(s) or who ever handles the news write ups and the person or persons that handle site updates it's understandable that they couldn't post a big message on the site and sure some of them come on during the weekends and say something like Judas but I don't think his job entails or allows him to post news or info of this nature even in the fourms at least without concent from his superiors who I'm sure don't want to be bugged on a Sunday.

I don't agree that they're virtually identical. Each installment has its own vibe featuring different cars, tracks, graphics, physics, features and music. I get that this is their justification but I honestly believe they'd make a bigger profit if they made their previous installments available through digital distribution.

You're free to believe whatever you want, but that doesn't change the fact that those games aren't coming back.

Goodbye Chessmaster 9000 . Hello System Shock double pack . :p