If you spend so much as a week playing video games, you will almost certainly encounter at least one bug. Depending on the games you play, running into multiple bugs or glitches in a single gaming session is not unusual.
As pointed out by CyberGhost’s blog piece, some video game bugs can be as hilarious as they are frustrating. Nevertheless, video game bugs have a largely negative impact on players’ experiences. That is why video game testing jobs are prevalent and why developers have to commit to hunting down and fixing thousands of bugs that show up.
In this post, we are going to introduce you to some of the most common types of video game bugs and glitches.
1. Freezes and crashes
One of the most infuriating types of bugs is when games freeze or even crash completely (sometimes crashing the entire system along the way). Players are then forced to restart the game, which often leads to a loss of game progress.
It may sometimes be possible to figure out what is triggering this type of bug and avoid it in the future. But in other scenarios, bugs that cause crashes can be game-breaking if there is no way to get around them.
2. Functionality bugs
This refers to types of bugs that involve functionality being modified, hampered, or missing. For instance, if you click on something in a game and nothing happens, even though it should, that is a functionality bug.
Functionality bugs may range from merely annoying to game-breaking, depending on where they occur and whether there are workarounds or not.
3. Graphics bugs
Graphics bugs are often among the funniest bugs that occur in games, as they cause surreal visual distortions. Many screenshots and videos of bugs that make rounds online fall into this pile.
4. Sound bugs
Sometimes, bugs affect the sound. An example would be a character speaking in a game but no sound coming out or a musical track refusing to stop when it should.
5. Bugs with compatibility
There may be bugs that result from problems with compatibility. For instance, let’s say a mod on a game works fine on a particular version. Then, the version of the game updates. Suddenly, the mod breaks because it is incompatible with the new version. That is a compatibility bug.
6. Bugs affecting in-game purchases
If a player is unable to complete an in-game purchase, it could be because a bug is standing in the way. Usually, developers fix these issues fast, but they can still be aggravating.
7. Physics bugs
Sometimes there may be bugs related to the physics of a game. This might cause in-game objects to behave in strange ways, disobeying the laws of gravity, etc.
8. Bugs related to online play
With online games, there may be bugs specifically related to matchmaking, servers, and so forth. Thankfully, online bugs are widely reported. So, they tend to be fixed pretty rapidly.
9. Bugs affecting saving and loading
Some of the worst types of bugs you can encounter when you are gaming are those that affect saving and loading.
They might make it impossible to save or load the game successfully and could even end up corrupting your saved data.
If that happens, hopefully, you will be able to revert to an earlier save that is not corrupted. But if you do not have one, you could end up losing all of your progress and having to start all over.
Now you are familiar with some of the most common types of video game bugs and glitches. Video game bugs can be infuriating, but it helps to remember how pervasive they are. Try and walk into gaming with the expectation that bugs will happen. They will still drive you crazy, but at least with realistic expectations, you are less likely to throw your controller through a window.