The Mac version of Master of Magic was removed from GoG libraries because GoG only had the right to distribute the Windows/Linux version. Colin McRae Rally was supposed to remove from libraries because GoG didn't have the right to sell it in the first place - but looks like a last minute deal prevented that from occurring.

Does that mean GOG faces possible legal trouble if they let us download it though?

pulling games from libraries like this should be illegal. The licence agreements shouldn't be allowed to work like this.

Well on GoG or Steam, apart from a few odd ends with rabid rights holders, the games always remained available after licence expiry. Mojang just released a general statement to warn people on all platforms. Because other online distribution platforms, mostly mobile and console ones that are less established and pretty much still wild west as consumer rights are concerned, do operate like that, licence expiry means the files will be scrubbed off their servers too. So for mobile and console this warning makes total sense, but causes unnecessary FUD on PC.

AFAIK, they only go to that length when there wasn't a license to allow the sale in the first place and they did provide compensation for the removals.

Generally speaking though, the licenses include language to allow GOG to continue to distribute previously sold copies to the buyer after the license expires. The license itself just covers the selling of new licensed copies, not the older ones.

Occasionally, you have things like with Quake where they yank the original version due to the soundtrack not technically being licensed and replace it with an authorized version, but in that case, if you downloaded the game immediately, like I did, you can still use the older version, it might just require some effort to keep up with potential patching issues later on.

Well, if you have the original CD release, no one can yank anything :)

Concerning the downloads: Yes GOG Galaxy should have such a functionality, but you can help yourself with (preferably) lgogdownloader and / or gogrepo.py. You have to be knowledgably to work with the linux command line though and maybe know how to make an executable out of the source (for lgogdownloader there are ready-made packages for debian/Ubuntu available).

Really, that is a shitstorm brewing up all over the PC gaming internet...

That was probably the one. I recalled its title would have had "Empire" in it but I couldn't find it, but "Imperial" is close enough. :)

External 6TB HDDs on Amazon (UK) start at about £110. 8TB ones start at £135.

My library is currently at 4.1TB with a bit over 1100 games, giving an average of almost 4 GB per game - and that includes copies in all available languages and for all systems in the cases where that's applicable. Provided you only download the installers for one or two languages and one system, that should shrink a bit (I haven't bothered to check how much), and a 6TB HDD should suffice for a while, even when accounting for the fact that it's probably 5TB usable.

Didn't the Minecraft Story Mode cd only contain the first episode, and a license to download the rest? As it came out before the episodes were actually finished?

I believe coffeecup was referring to quake.

Likely, which is why they sometimes have to do it.

You can also patch back in the music via other sites. Though imo companies should try to get lifetime rights to such to avoid this kind of thing.

I have a laptop without the ability to change HDDs(afaik)...also even if I could I wouldn't want to risk data loss/corruption by cloning the data to another drive/etc. Also extrenal drives are sometimes cr*p for newer games.

For running the games from, sure, but they're good enough to store and run the installers. You don't have to have every single game installed at once.

I store my installers on a RAIDed NAS/server in my network. I can mount the shared folder and run the installers from there.

Good point but running the installers from the externals(if they're cheaper ones) is sometimes slower and copying them to the main drives(s) can also take a bit of time.

Also some of us have to save for even an external(I use usb sticks for some storage), let alone something as nice(but pricey) as a NAS setup.