Release readiness and live operations
The final development phase includes support and recovery.
Freeze and verify
Record version, source identity, artifact hash, test results, known issues and reviewer decisions. Check that store media matches the submitted experience. Make rollback or withdrawal instructions and escalation contacts available before launch.
Operate responsibly
Monitor crashes and material service failures using proportionate data collection. Provide a working support route and truthful service notices. Online games require operational ownership for recovery, abuse handling and account or data requests.
Improve with evidence
Prioritize issues by player harm and frequency, then usability and content. Keep a versioned change log. Confirm improvements on the actual released candidate; a repaired development build does not prove every player has received the fix.