Changelog for Update (added 29 November 2016):

- Redirected main menu link to Activision website.

Anyone wondering what exactly this means, here's the clarification:

I don't know if this changed anything else but GOG Galaxy (1.1.23) couldn't start the game after this update (it just gave me a decreasing sequence of black boxes) - it worked fine on Monday. Weirdly when I used the shortcut in the game's directory it worked and fixed it in Galaxy as well.

Same issue here, but the same thing worked for me as well :)

I don't understand the change. If the game is no longer in development or support, why would we want to go to the Activision site?

Where did the old link go?

I don't have access to a PC I can load the game up on right this second, but I believe it went to the game's homepage on GOG.com. There's no reference to these games I could find on the Activision site, even with the site's search engine.

I can think of a couple of possible meanings/reasons for this change, all of the grim, but I guess there's no benefit to speculation.

That wouldn't set a good precedent for future deals regarding Activision games. They have contracts. Activision owns the rights to the game, they can change whatever they want.

I don't remember Activision having anything to do with the city building games and I also don't recall them ever purchasing licensing rights for it.

Even if they did, Activision does not give a toss for any of the CB games, neither do they support them whatsoever, so they're essentially directing traffic away from GOG.com for no real reason, meaning this community is just going to fall into non-existence because nobody will come here for help with the game, which is why the link in the games pointing here was a good thing.

If you can find a source that proves Activision owns the IP rights to Pharaoh/Zeus/Caesar 3, please provide it and prove me wrong.

I'm not sure why you're even asking. Just visit the GOG store page of any of these games, they clearly list Activision as the publisher, and have Activision copyright statements in the bottom.

All of these games were published by Sierra. Sierra was merged into Activision Blizzard in 2008. All the Sierra IP has belonged to Activision for almost 10 years now. If you want more proof, just visit sierra.com and see what it says in the bottom: "© 2016 Activision Publishing, Inc."

How would Activision be able to update the GOG versions of the games if they didn't own the rights to them?

Anyway, I doubt that this is going to have any effect on how many people come to these forums. One, I don't think many people use in-game web links, and two, the links only ever pointed to the GOG website for people who already bought the game here in the first place, so they'd be well aware of where to go for support.

Game was developed by Impressions Games that was sold to Sierra (publisher of their games) that was bought out by Cendant and eventually Vivendi. Vivendi merged later with Activision forming Activision Blizzard so yes, they seem to own the whole ip as they own original developer (Impressions Games) and publisher (Sierra). You can read it all in wikipedia pages of various companies involved.

No idea why Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom has not been released as it too was developed by Impressions Games (with BreakAway games that made the Cleopatra: Queen of the Nile expansion for Pharaoh) and published by Sierra. There should not be ownership complications and it's newer so technical difficulties seem unlikely what's holding it back. But then again, this is Activision we're talking about so anything is possible.

Would be nice to have that last game in the series , i guess its extremely less popular than zeus andd pharaoh . i still remember reading the reviews that said the emperor just re skinned everything from the previous games

Emperor takes the Zeus game engine changes and refines them more into something that would be similar to Pharaoh. Missions in Emperor are much closer to what Pharaoh did, except with the Zeus stuff like mission goals, separated housing and continuation missions. Most of what Emperor did basically reintroduced most old Pharaoh features, with the exception of the flood plain mechanic.

Zeus is only popular because the mechanics are so insanely easy to understand and the challenge is largely removed. This is because you can just sit in one or more missions building huge treasuries and because of changes to campaign mode, the treasuries carry through every mission, so you can go into some colony missions with insane amounts of money, making them stupidly easy to get through. I only started playing Zeus recently and I'm pretty much close to completing even the Poseidon campaign missions.