[ctrlmeta]

Exactly! An unfortunate truth about running live and complex services is that they break frequently in strange and weird ways and we need to write a fix as quickly as possible, get it reviewed quickly and then roll it out asap. The term "hotfix" literally comes from that. The time range to develop and apply hotfix can be 30 mins to 48 hours--depends on nature of issue.

[jicksaw]

But how often can you say with confidence it will take 30 minutes? If the author was wrong about being able to do it in time, the players would waste their time waiting for a solution and eventually leave. It might be better to just tell the players to go home.

IME with a hotfix you have no choice but to fix it, no matter how long it takes.