What are the downsides of a public bug tracker?

It exposes your bug list, which can look alarming to prospective players, and it sets expectations you'll be held to. Some studios reasonably prefer not to advertise every flaw. These costs are why it's a real decision; a common compromise is a curated known-issues page showing only major acknowledged problems while keeping minor bugs internal.

Should my bug tracker be fully public or private?

Often neither extreme, a curated middle path works best: publish the significant known issues and a roadmap of fixes for trust and deflection, while keeping the long tail of minor bugs internal. That gives you the community benefits without exposing everything. Tools that separate your internal list from curated public pages make this straightforward.

Do I Need a Public Bug Tracker?

Q: Do I need a public bug tracker?

Not strictly, it's a genuine judgement call. A public tracker builds trust (players are more patient with acknowledged bugs) and deflects duplicate reports, but it exposes your bug list and sets expectations. For most community-driven games the benefits win, especially via a curated public view of major issues rather than your full raw list.

Quick answer: Not strictly, but it's often worth it. A public tracker shows players known issues and progress, building trust and deflecting duplicate reports, at the cost of exposing your bug list. For most community-driven games, the trust and deflection win.

A public bug tracker lets players see what's broken and what you're working on. Unlike crash reporting, this is a genuine judgement call: it has real benefits (trust, deflection) and real costs (exposure, expectation management). Whether you need one depends on your community and temperament.

The Case For: Trust and Deflection

A public tracker shows players you're aware of issues and working on them, which builds enormous goodwill, players are far more patient with a known, acknowledged bug than one they think you're ignoring. It also deflects support volume: players check the tracker instead of reporting the same issue again.

Bugnet's public tracker gives you this: a player-facing view of known issues and their status, fed from the same data you work from. For a game with an engaged community, the trust and reduced duplicate-report load are substantial.

The Case Against: Exposure and Expectations

The honest downside: a public tracker exposes your bug list, which can look alarming to prospective players and sets expectations you'll then be held to. Some developers prefer not to advertise every flaw, and that's legitimate. A public list of problems isn't right for every game or every studio's style.

This is why it's a real decision, not an obvious yes. You can also take a middle path, a curated "known issues" page showing only major acknowledged problems, rather than your full raw list.

A Middle Path Often Wins

You don't have to choose between fully public and fully private. Many games do best with a curated public view, the significant known issues and a roadmap of fixes, while keeping the long tail of minor bugs internal. You get the trust and deflection benefits without exposing everything.

Bugnet lets you keep your full bug list internal while publishing curated public pages, a tracker, roadmap, and changelog, so you control exactly what players see. For most games, that curated middle path is the sweet spot, which is why a public-facing option is usually worth having even if you don't expose everything.

It's a real judgement call. Public trackers build trust and deflect duplicates but expose your bug list. A curated public view of major issues is usually the sweet spot.