Are all glitches repeatable?

[Jarvio]

Is there such thing as a glitch that can happen to 1 person in the world only? On a normal copy of a game I mean...

On FFX-2 I hit attack and it did trigger happy instead (I think). If that happened to me, could it happen to others too?

[Skyblade]

It depends on how the glitch occurred, and what caused it.

Theoretically, any glitch would be 100% repeatable, if the same circumstances existed. This is why there are members of the speed running community called "glitch hunters" who just experiment to find ways to exploit the game's code to create odd effects which can, hopefully, be used to make the game faster.

But, not all glitches are dependent on the game itself. The game interacts directly with the software operating system of the console, and a glitch in that system could affect the game as well. It is even possible that a glitch is caused by the combination of several different effects which combine to have a notable glitch.

Further, no two pieces of hardware are ever exactly identical, which is why tool assisted runs frequently have to be paired to a particular console in order for their frame-perfect inputs to succeed, as even a minute difference in hardware that is completely undetectable to humans playing or even analyzing the game bit by bit can desync something that requires ultimate precision.

So, yes, every glitch should be repeatable to everyone, but only if we know the exact circumstances under which it occurs.

[Jarvio]

It depends on how the glitch occurred, and what caused it.

Theoretically, any glitch would be 100% repeatable, if the same circumstances existed. This is why there are members of the speed running community called "glitch hunters" who just experiment to find ways to exploit the game's code to create odd effects which can, hopefully, be used to make the game faster.

But, not all glitches are dependent on the game itself. The game interacts directly with the software operating system of the console, and a glitch in that system could affect the game as well. It is even possible that a glitch is caused by the combination of several different effects which combine to have a notable glitch.

Further, no two pieces of hardware are ever exactly identical, which is why tool assisted runs frequently have to be paired to a particular console in order for their frame-perfect inputs to succeed, as even a minute difference in hardware that is completely undetectable to humans playing or even analyzing the game bit by bit can desync something that requires ultimate precision.

So, yes, every glitch should be repeatable to everyone, but only if we know the exact circumstances under which it occurs.

Thanks for the reply.

So you think I'm not the only one who may have experienced what I mentioned on X-2?

[Skyblade]

Thanks for the reply.

So you think I'm not the only one who may have experienced what I mentioned on X-2?

I doubt you are the only one. But I would not be surprised if the requirements to trigger it were rare or random enough that it's unlikely for us to find someone else who has experienced it.

[Mirage]

If the glitch is caused by the way the developers coded the game, it will be present on every copy of the game that uses the same build of the code. Not all all releases of the same game are of the same build. For example, the save wipe bug in soul calibur 3 is not present in the "greatest hits" version of the game, as they changed the code and re-compiled it before they had the greatest hits discs made.

If a glitch is caused by data corruption, it will only be present on the games whose medium has that suffered data corruption. This can be either "bit rot" on a game installed on a hard drive or a physically damaged disc. In many cases, data corruption causes the game to just crash, as it's very likely that some of the corrupted data is essential for the game to function at all.

If a glitch is caused by the particular system it's run on, then the same version of the game on the same version of the system will always have that glitch.

Because we usually don't have access to the source code of the game, it can sometimes be very hard to pin down the exact conditions that trigger a certain glitch. Because of that, some glitches might seem random, but that's only because we as players don't have enough data to be able to predict when it's going to happen. It is likely that only a small percentage of glitches that can happen in a game, are actually well known by the gaming communities.

Most games probably have lots of glitches that are both so minor that people don't notice them, and so rare that people have no idea why they happen or how to reproduce them, and a combination of both of these. Especially on locked-down systems, it's hard to determine what causes a glitch. In a PC game, you have more tools available to track down the issue. You can use debugging tools, and scan through memory addresses, and open the game files in for example a hex editor and look at the machine code.

If you only "think" you pressed attack and got trigger happy instead, it's also possible that your brain made a mistake and didn't interpret the situation correctly. Human perception and memories are very fuzzy.

[Slothy]

In theory, sure, every glitch should be repeatable. In practice, the causes of some glitches might be so extremely rare that it will likely never be repeated again. But most glitches people actually notice in games tend to repeat with some frequency for at least one person.

[Del Murder]

Human glitches are the only ones that are not repeatable.