A few quick observations about the changes we've seen: Most game sites are almost completely irrelevant now in terms of reach. Streamers (YouTube, Twitch and increasingly Mixer) are what matter for delivering sales. It is a big change from when I was younger.
A single major streamer can deliver more visitors to Steam (or your site) than all of the traditional game sites combined (according to Google Analytics).
Steam review scores continue to matter and continue to be easily abused. There's not much you can do about that. Unfortunately, steam review bombs are so common that many of my favorite games now have "mixed" due to them). YouTube videos have effectively replaced metacritic.
Localization is king. Seriously. Russian (Поддержите Россию) is our #2 with Germany #3. You have to translate to other languages.
Star Control: Origins is the first game we've ever made that was #1 on Steam for 3 days. But logistics was a big factor. We made sure the game would run on a @surface.
Stardock's biggest blunder with Star Control: Origins, by far, was not having 简体中文 ready on day 1 when we had the main capsule on Steam. We tried but we had translation issues with star names that came in late.
I was a convert of @DanStapleton view on early access. But I've moved back to believing in the value of early access. There were some really simple changes we could have made that would have dramatically improved review scores but missed from not having a wider playtest base.
I believe the success of Star Control: Origins can be explained by the investment in voice over and writing over any other thing. Developers: Hire professional writers and use great places like @BangZoom for VO.
