Spikerz I am going to say this for you and everyone else here.

You are free to buy or not buy a game. You can also voice your reasons and if that includes a preference for having a game in a prefered store/client fair enough.

But, you are not free to describe other people in our community as "part of the problem" or call our partners "cancer". That's hyperbolic toxicity and frankly not the kind of attitude we want in our community playing our games.

Be respectful, don't try to start a flame war here or you will be shown the door.

I want to play this game.  I want to buy it on Steam.  Is it going to be released on Steam?  If so when?  If never then say so.

It's ok ... I'm big enough and ugly enough to handle it    It's like water off a ducks back ... I'm just loving Galciv4 and I hope the sales of the game are reflecting the recognition I believe the game deserves!

Personally i am switching between different launchers more and more often. I am using Epic, Steam and the microsoft store. 

Is it more convenient for me as a customer to have everything in one store? Yes of course. But in the end the games industry is not the same as back in the 2000s.

In terms of Steam what i strongly dislike is the way how the review system is used and abused in this day and age. At least in steam the game is not the product anymore. It is the dopanie rush people are getting from negative and angry reviews. 

Often is goes like this: The person is angry his favourite streamer was not given the possibility to play the game before launch. Then he buys the game and stays under the 2 hour test period. He writes a bad review not about the game, but how the marketing and streaming campaign was handeled. Then he refunds the game. (Warhammer Total War 3) 

After this the person goes over to twitter, reddit and metacritic. Reddit and twitter blow up and youtube content creators and twitch streamers who profit from the negative game news more than from positive take up the story and "sell" it to their audience. Because it generates a lot of klicks for them. (Warhammer Total war 3) (People asked for a roadmap, the devs gave them a roadmap. People were still angry, because it was not the roadmap they wanted and review bombed the game even more...) 

After 2 weeks everybody has forgotten about the game and the reviews. But even when the developers change and improve the game, people rarely go out of their way to change the reviews back to positive. 

I have seen this times and times again. 

Stardock has earned my trust since Galactic Civ 2 and Sins of Solar empire. The company is providing me with great content and is always willing to listen to community feedback. 

When i look at the games industry today Stardock is one the rare companies where i can defenetly say "Yes, they will manage to improve their game".

Don't ask me how many times i was burned by other companies with strange lootbox schemes or unfinished products. 

Galactic Civ 4 is on Epic now? Ok then i will play it over the epic launcher. Stardock says they will add mod support later? In terms of Stardock i know they will work on it. 

I'm not going to go back to credit the poster by name (it may have been Brad), but the post relating to games and the steam workshop a decade ago has been on my mind while reading these types of complaints over the more recent years. *That* was an annoyance. The idea that I would walk into a store, buy a boxed game, put the DVD into my PC, and then need to download a substantial portion of the game from Steam/login to Steam to play/etc.... that was a reason to not buy a game.

Having to use one store versus another? Come on. We do this every day for items we purchase. 

This whole argument of Steam Vs. Epic is in my opinion absolutely pure nonsense

I have Steam, EPIC and Blizzard Games Battle Net for StarCraft 2 and Heroes of the Storm. Blizzard made games are can only be played exclusively on Battle Net. If you own a Blizzard game you don't have a choice but to use BattleNet to play Blizzard Games.

I have never seen anyone say they won't play StarCraft because it's not on Steam. If you bought StarCraft I or 2 on CD it installs Battle Net in order to play them. How many of you play Warcraft?  I sure no one will say they won't play it because it not on Steam or boycott Blizzard because they're games are exclusive to Battle Net.

I also have nVidia Experience games hub and HP Omen gaming hub both of which put all my games in one neat little basket I can launch and play every game I have from regardless what platform I bought it from.

Again this whole argument is ignorant hypocrisy and absolutely absurd and pointless. Either buy it now and play it on EPIC or wait until it's Stardock decides to sell it on steam. Truthfully speaking what are you missing? Nothing really. 

Furthermore if anyone here had cared to do the resrarch Tencent absolutely does not pass malware or spyware through the EPIC Games store. EPIC Games does not sell your personal information to China. As far as hacking every gaming platform has hackers. As for Epic games not allowed in China, go figure, it's a communist nation which demands control of what they allow their citizens to have and not have.

Stop with the conspiracy theories. There is no proof, just unproven accusations and rumors started by some guy who admitted he has no software experience or proof. If anyone bothered to research it would have found all this non sense regarding EPIC Games and Tencent is a fabricated conspiracy theory weaved into a hoax by paranoid, ignorant gamers who failed to look it up and find out.

Your only choice here is buy it now on Epic or buy it later if it comes to Steam. Knock it off with the conspiracy theories and exclusive non sense. Brad has repeatedly said they want to eventually sell on Steam when the time comes.

Can you get over your paranoia about Epic Games?

It isn't a conspiracy theory to say I don't trust software by major companies (including Epic) by default. End users being the product for our ad-based culture is a known thing, after all.

I don't run BattleNet either (having zero interest in StarCraft or whatever, so it never really came up) -- and would again think long and hard before trusting their launcher. No idea why you call that "hypocrisy" -- I tolerate Steam only because it has earned a modicum of trust over the years. The second they break that trust (like 2K did with their Civ launcher a while back), I'll remove it. Epic hasn't earned any trust for me, and I'm fine with waiting as I said before. I'd rather buy it from Stardock (who *has* earned my trust). (Oh, and I don't trust GeForce Experience since they went account only and added all the Telemetry processes either... none of this is aimed at EGS, I'm just particular about what I allow to execute).

Keep in mind, I'm not saying those of you who do trust EGS are wrong -- that's for you to decide. Just that it isn't simply a "another launcher" issue for some of us. Attacking that as "paranoia" or "hypocrisy" doesn't persuade anyone.

It all fine and dandy that you don't trust Epic but don't spread conspiracy theories, unproven rumor and accusations about Epic that have been proven to be false yet continuing to be spread with hypocrisy and paranoia.

Yes right here. You are spreading a conspiracy theory, false accusation and rumor that has been proven to be untrue and false. Stop it.

Okay, a reminder: Be respectful, don't try to start a flame war here or you will be shown the door.

This back and forth is clearly not going anywhere good so I advise taking a step back.

This is better than a soap opera.

I'm going to ignore most of your post as it mainly contains conspiracy theories, and an unnecessarily personal and insulting tone (which I did not appreciate).

However, I did want to point out that you are accusing me of using a straw man argument while simultaneously misrepresenting the content of my post in order to dismiss my opinion. You should really look up the definition of a straw man argument before lobbing the accusation against someone else.

the ONLY games this did not work on was EA Origin games like Mass Effect, but those were linked in the Origin account anyway...

There should have been no reason at all that you would have to buy a game a second time....