http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/empire-ip-rights-sold-as-49-staff-made-redundant
I hope this doesn't adversely affect the GOG deal, or prevent them from adding more games :/ Empire have been around since 1987, and while the titles already here are some of the best (IMHO), there are plenty more that would be welcome.
http://www.gog.com/en/search/sort/publisher/Empire%20Interactive

There's already discussion about this in the Empire Interactive thread .. somewhere.
No official word on the current / future status of the GoG games as of yet.

Being discussed here
No official word yet.
edit: stonebro has similar timing and wording... :)

Since GOG isn't saying anything, I'm suspecting they don't quite know what will happen themselves. Empire sold their games through a number of digital distribution portals, so GOG are probably not the only ones who have to deal with this issue somehow.
As for new games, it probably depends on New World IP. If they are just an opportunistic IP-grabber who aims to sell the IPs on to other companies (which I kind of suspect), they might not be interested in offering new deals which could make such a sale more complicated. If they have long-term interests in keeping and developing the IPs, the situation may be different and they might be very willing to cooperate.

Good news, things seem to happen surprisingly fast here. Apparently Zoo Publishing is now "licensing" the IPs from New World IP, meaning the control of Empire's franchises now seems to be back in the hands of an actual game company. And one that's not huge and impossible to deal with. So I hope this will not only mean that the Empire-games stays on GOG, but that we get more Empire-titles in the future.
Read more here:
[url=]http://www.worthplaying.com/article.php?sid=62371[/url]
[url=]http://www.zoogamesinc.com/[/url]
"This agreement allows Zoo Publishing the ability to re-release previous Empire titles, to port previously released games to new platforms, and to create new gaming content from existing Empire intellectual property. "

Thanks for the update! Fingers crossed.

Damn, they're falling like flies, in these days....