I know that bug fixes, new content or content changes, and compatibility fixes are all standard maintenance and updates for any published game these days, and this does not seem to be difficult to do considering I have not seen anyone complain that it is difficult. But what about any non-standard post (after) publishing maintenance and support?
For example, I have seen a few times that someone asks a developer if they can fix a game save because a costly mistake was made, or a game breaking bug was encountered, or some other reason, and usually they can and do fix it for those customers.
And for mobile games I know of people who had to change device to another that was not the same, and the developer was able to transfer their game saves.
I am curious of experiences that any of you with games published anywhere have regarding any kinds of non-standard post (after) publishing maintenance and support. And if any of you have not experienced anything like this. For an estimate of how usual or unusual this is, and if any platforms or operating systems are more problematic to maintain and support.
Well, I haven’t released any game yet, but I do manager a codebase with some game-like features inside.
Issues are very common and most of the times its very hard to know what the issues are because the user doesn’t give me much context - I fixed this by adding logs to mostly all tasks - so I have to do a lot of guessing to replicate.
The codebase is multiplatform, that is it works on Web, Mobile and Desktop but all share separate logic. For me the hardest was Mobile because it wasn’t plug and play, I can’t see the logs and it’s a bit more dynamic and sandboxed than the others. Linux was great but anti-cheats kept on breaking on Linux 
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For the transfer of saves and files, I mostly keep some important stuff server-side so users won’t have to worry about that.
Bug fixes are on a weekly basis. I do not do compatibility fixes but rather hide features that doesn’t meet the requirements.
All in all, it isn’t difficult but it’s a long task than sometimes and again sometimes can be frustrating.
Valuable insight, thanks!
Being an aspiring solo developer, until I can possibly hire a team if sales are good enough, it is the unknowns of post publishing maintenance and support by myself that has kept me on the fence whether to try or not. I envision publishing a game and seeing good sales, then something more difficult than usual needs to be fixed, unable to fix is fast, then seeing sales and ratings drop, and that reputation hurting future games. Which is why I started this topic.
Look up Trese Brothers. They are some of the best Indy developers with a terrific community.