Are game updates a must?

Game by game basis. In general I update my games, but in some cases it can cause issues.
Check the RPCS3 wiki page for the game to see if there's anything listed there.

Thanks Ani.

Please forgive me for asking a dumb question how does someone correctly update the games ? I was trying to update Gran Turismo 5 from an update file however after completing the update the emulator seems to crash when I load the newly updated game. The files are the same ones I used on my Actual PlayStation 3 so I don't think they are the issue. tried update files from 2 different sources with the same results. The game runs fine in the base version.