word. no idea why you're being downvoted. are EA simps a larger number here than i thought?

I'll guess a few things here.

01. EA wants to remake or remaster these. Why not? I'd guess ME:LE sold extremely well and C&C: Remastered Collection was well-received - so it's probably off to the races w/ more remakes and/or remasters.

02. Whether they do or don't on the above stuff (remaster or remake), they probably want to make them exclusive to their own service - so that all the profits for games sales go ONLY to them and also so it's a selling point of EA Pass subscription service.

03. As others and Stinging have suggested - maybe they sold the IP off to someone. Hopefully, if that is the case, it's in the hands of someone who actually cares about the game, franchises, and DRM-FREE.

This really isn't about what we, the customer & consumer, want unfortunately. Personally, I like options - I want my games on as many digital game-stores and platforms as possible. This way, the consumer can go for the best price, best package, favorite store/client-app, or grab a DRM-FREE version from GOG.

But, this is all about money and business to suits - and they're going to make a decision that helps out their bottom line most importantly to them, unfortunately.

EDIT - Good thing I bought these soon-to-be-delisted games a while ago, all from GOG.

well, there were CD versions of those games back in late 90s I think...

They'd probably also have to add multiplayer to work on GOG Galaxy, if anyone actually would play that.

And they'd have to make a version just for GOG, removing or disabling all of the Origin-required dependencies and junk (Achievements, Cloud Saves, etc etc) and have to rework all of that Origin-required stuff over to the GOG Galaxy suite of stuff.

So that means they have to pull down the originals?

So I should just bend over and accept it, because it makes 'business sense' to some faceless corporation and their shareholders? Fuck 'em. I don't care about the business suits' and their money. Why should I?

I agree, any IP moving away from EA would be a good development.

Could indeed be something of the kind. It's specially weird because for a long time EA even threw some "crumbs" at GOG (like allowing them to offer "Ultima Worlds" games). And I also find it strange why - of the entire Ultima and old EA games - only the Syndicate and Underworld IPs are going at the same time (and Ultima Underworld 2 is even a spin-off from Ultima 7).
Given the flops that were the "2012 Syndicate" and "Underworld Ascendant", I find it hard to believe that EA would waste time on long forgotten IPs.

There sure is a chance that the rest of EA's games on GOG may disappear. But like you and others have stated, it's also possible that the IP has changed hands (although it could be expected that some news site would cover it).
If that's indeed the case, I only hope that some "friendly publisher" (like Ziggurat or THQ) has acquired the rights.

If they didn't, then people might not buy their "new and improved (often essentially paid mods)" versions.

Seconded

In general yes.. So lonh as they get used and not keep in a vault to rot as some companies do with IP's they buy up in a sort of'' We might use this later and we might not '' Sort of mindset

More likely is that there's just no one championing this at EA. At a large corporation, if someone's pet project doesn't have an executive cheerleading it, it's hard to get traction. And at EA in particular, merely bringing in consistent revenue isn't enough - year-over-year growth is required.

EA would do well to sell, or at least license, their IPs to a company like Nightdive whose business model would make more sense for them. But EA isn't crunched for cash, so they have no real impetus to sell, and hanging onto the IPs lets them slap them on a free-to-play mobile game if they wish, as they did with Dungeon Keeper.

Is it funny or just sad that PC Gamer is better than GOG at communicating the upcoming removal of these games? *le sigh*

Sad, ain't it?

I get ya as far too many games exist where outside of buying a now super pricey used copy to play em there isn't any legal means to play em anymore for companies refusing to put them out for sale in those cases its unavoidable unless someone is loaded with cash to literaly have a legal copy and not a copy from ''Stumbling across a copy somewhere else''

I hear ya....like e-bay sellers and etc(and it's even more pricey if the copy is new/sealed in box).

Btw, a useful tip: one can have a legal/legit copy if one simply owns a game disc....even if it's scratched or broken. This means that if one buys a damaged disc copy of a game, they can legally "stumble across a copy of said game somewhere else" in some countries.

Ah, damn. Ultima Underworld 1 and 2 are great, and Syndicate is a piece of history.
I won't be able to get Syndicate Wars, unfortunately, so I hope it will come back...


(Cursed crappy "remasters" incoming?)