Quick answer: Debug overlays that survive the release flag are gold for production debugging. A passphrase-gated debug menu with safe operations gives you live diagnostics from real player machines.
Most studios strip debug overlays. Keep them; gate them behind a passphrase; the bug class drops by half.
Passphrase activation
Konami-code-style sequence opens the overlay. Plus a password the player must know. Discovery by accident: effectively impossible.
Safe operations only
No 'spawn 1000 enemies'. Read-only diagnostic views, status dumps, log capture. Side-effect-free.
Player-uploadable dump
One button: 'send debug dump to support'. Compresses recent log, system info, screenshot; attaches to a Bugnet ticket.
Audit for sensitive data
The debug overlay shows things QA needs. Make sure those things don't include user secrets (save paths, session tokens, internal URLs).
“Shipped debug is a power tool. Use it carefully; reach for it confidently.”
A shipped debug overlay pays back the first time a player can't repro a bug and you can dump their state in two clicks.