How to Keep a Public Known Issues List

When players hit a bug, the first thing many do is search to see whether anyone else has noticed. A public known issues list answers that question for them, and doing so turns a moment of frustration into a moment of reassurance: the team knows, and a fix is coming. Done well, such a list builds enormous trust and quietly cuts your duplicate report load. Done poorly, a stale or evasive list does the opposite. This post covers keeping a known issues list that actually helps, what to include, how to write entries, how to keep it current, and how to tie it to your real bug data.

Why a known issues list is worth it

A player who hits a bug and finds it already listed feels reassured rather than abandoned. They learn the team is aware, often see a workaround, and understand a fix is on the way, which transforms frustration into patience. That single interaction does more for trust than almost any marketing, because it shows honesty about imperfection, and players consistently reward studios that are upfront about problems over ones that pretend everything is flawless and leave them guessing.

There is a practical payoff too: a good known issues list dramatically reduces duplicate reports. Instead of fielding the same bug from a hundred players, you field it from a few and point the rest to the list, freeing your time for actual fixing. The list becomes a shared reference between you and your community, a single honest source of truth about the current state of the game that benefits both sides at once.

What to list and what to leave off

Not every bug belongs on a public list. Include the issues players are actually hitting and asking about, the ones widespread or severe enough that transparency helps more than it worries. A crash many people encounter, a broken feature, or a confusing behavior that generates questions all deserve a spot. The list is for the bugs your community already knows about or will soon, where acknowledging them builds trust and heads off a wave of duplicate reports.

Leave off the long tail of minor, rare, or internal issues that would only clutter the list and alarm players unnecessarily. A public list is not your full backlog, it is a curated view of the issues that matter to players right now. Be thoughtful, too, about anything with security implications, which generally should not be publicized until fixed. Curation is what keeps the list useful and reassuring rather than an overwhelming, scary catalog of everything wrong with the game.

Write entries players can use

Each entry should be written for players, not pulled from your internal tracker. State the problem in plain language describing what the player experiences, not the technical cause. Where you can, include a workaround, because a temporary way around a bug is enormously valuable and turns a complaint into a manageable annoyance. A clear status, like investigating, fix in progress, or fixed in the next update, tells players exactly where things stand without overpromising.

Keep entries honest and free of corporate hedging. Players can tell when a status has been vague for weeks, and an entry that says investigating for two months erodes the very trust the list was meant to build. If you do not have a timeline, it is fine to say so, but be straight about it. The whole value of the list rests on it being believable, so every entry should be something you would be comfortable defending to a frustrated but reasonable player.

Setting it up with Bugnet

Bugnet keeps your known issues list grounded in reality instead of guesswork. Because reports are grouped by occurrence with a count, you can see at a glance which bugs are actually widespread enough to deserve a public entry, rather than reacting to whoever complained loudest. The occurrence count is the clearest signal of which issues your community is genuinely hitting and would benefit from seeing acknowledged on a public list.

Statuses and labels on each issue mirror the states you show players, so your internal tracking and your public list can stay in sync as a bug moves from investigating to fixed. When a fix ships, the build version on incoming reports confirms whether the problem actually stopped, telling you it is safe to mark the entry resolved. One dashboard holding every report with its context makes it realistic to keep the public list honest and current rather than letting it drift out of date.

Keep it current relentlessly

A known issues list lives or dies by how current it is. A stale list is worse than none, because it actively misleads: players see an old entry, assume nothing has changed, and lose faith in everything else you have posted. Build updating the list into your release routine so that when a bug is fixed, its entry is updated or removed in the same pass, and when a new widespread issue emerges, it gets added promptly rather than days later.

Move resolved items into a fixed section or a changelog rather than silently deleting them, because showing what you have fixed is as reassuring as acknowledging what is broken. That visible progress tells players the list is alive and the team is shipping. A list that obviously reflects this week's reality, with recent additions and recent resolutions, earns far more trust than a polished one that has clearly not been touched since launch and no longer matches the game.

Make it part of your loop

A public known issues list works best as one piece of a larger habit of closing the loop with players. It pairs naturally with release notes that announce fixes and with responses to individual reporters, forming a consistent message that the team listens and acts. When a player sees their reported bug appear on the list and later move to fixed, the whole experience confirms that reporting matters, which feeds the reporting culture you depend on.

Treat the list as a living conversation rather than a static page. Point players to it when they report known issues, update it as the situation changes, and celebrate the resolved section as proof of progress. Over time, a well kept known issues list becomes a trusted fixture of your community, a place players check first that consistently tells them the truth, and that reputation for honesty is one of the most durable assets a game can have.

A current, honest known issues list builds trust and cuts duplicate reports. A stale one does the opposite, so keep it alive or do not keep it at all.