Bugs are game points attained during game development which represent flaws in a game. Bugs are randomly spawned instead of Tech or Design points. Chance of spawning bugs is 31% for Employee Level 1 and 16% for Manager Level 1. The chance of spawning Bugs is reduced with higher Level of Staff. Minimum bug spawning chance is 6% (for Employee Level 4 and higher or Manager Level 3 and higher). This chance is applied to every Tech or Design point so the game with more Tech or Design points gets more bugs. While they can hinder the review score of a game, they can easily be removed as soon as a game has reached the end of game development called the Finishing stage. They will be speedily removed, as is the main goal of the final stage of development. The process of removing all bugs can take anywhere from a couple of weeks to upwards of a month.
Bugs are useful to adjust your final game score by reducing the T + D total, in case it goes higher than your target score. (explain further).
Game Patches[]
A game patch is similar to an expansion pack in that it is somewhat a re-release of a game. Patches can only be released if hidden bugs (which randomly appear in games) are found by players of the game, in which case, a prompt will appear asking for a patch to be sent out. The prompt can be skipped and the game can be left unaltered, but by doing so, the player will lose fans.
As opposed to the process of making an expansion pack (which is very similar to full-scale game development), the patching of a game only requires one employee to make the patch. This process can take as long as training but results in an increase of fans and a (sometimes slight) spike in unit sales per week of a game. The development of a patch is not free, but the price normally doesn't exceed a million dollars.
Due to the fact that that they can only be sent out if hidden bugs are found, patches cannot be willingly sent out for a game if bugs were accidentally left in the game, not even in the case of a bug appearing at the press of the Finish development button.