Joshua Burner - Ultimate Fails of 2023

★ Verse 1 ★
Ol' Kotaku was derpin' around
Getting blacklisted for acting like clowns
And pretending that their petty Nintendo feud
Is comparable to fighting in World War II
When Nintendo's sketchy patents and a bug that wiped saves
And tourney shutdowns and DMCAs
And forever garnishing a pirate's salary
And they hired an expert in NFTs
But crying wolf tends to gain more clout
Yet there's more fun stuff to journalize about
Like all the live services that didn't make returns
And NFT investments that crashed and burned
Also Take 2 Interactive gets drunk on power
And claims that their games should be priced by the hour
And Unity reneged on their latest call
Where developers paid for every install

★ Chorus ★
These are the worst gaming failures of 2023
Bad games, bad press, and bad choices; the products of corporate greed
And all of it is so trite; it's just so hard to believe
These are the worst gaming failures of 2023

★ Verse 2 ★
The Escapist cans a great editor-in-chief
Yahtzee was his friend, so he also leaves
American McGee tried to greenlight Alice 3
And like the third Titanfall, it wasn't meant to be
And Jedi: Survivor released pretty buggy
But if that's EA's worst, then I guess we got lucky
Shadow-dropped Hi-Fi Rush is still outshining
Big budget Forespoken's millennial writing
Ubisoft comes back with several backtracks
Of deleting old accounts and pop-up ads
All the classics getting twisted, and it makes you wanna cry
When they hide the games folks would actually buy!
Others selling cosmetics that are only one use
And blaming creatives; they're just that obtuse
Yu Suzuki back with more NFTs
And F's in the chat for the death of E3

★ Chorus ★
These are the worst gaming failures of 2023
Bad games, bad press, and bad choices; the products of corporate greed
And all of it is so trite; it's just so hard to believe
These are the worst gaming failures

★ Bridge ★
Customers recoiled with a trembling cry
Rising from the depths had ascended AI
The corporations beheld a new way to be scummy
By laying off workers and still getting money
Square and Ubisoft cutting corners with glee
And public apologies using ChatGPT
This caused a strike that did little in the end
With a tiny loophole called "Exemptions to Consent"

★ Verse 3 ★
And Activision Blizzard being just the worst
Their PvE promises get hard reversed
With paywalled story and devious promos
And conditioning kids using predatory FoMOs
Maui Mauga, dev crunch, GameBattles, motive hunch
Surveys, SAs, double worker downward punch
The ridiculous requirements for a CoD launcher
Diablo IV's a chore and horse armor
This company's year was such a s***show
That even China told them GTFO
It was the cringiest fails anyone ever seen
Y'all kept saying this should be a Top Fifteen
The fails raged on for 12 whole months
Lots of wasted money, lots of jobs were lost
But the start of this year, we have a solid winning:
Bobby Kotick is finally quitting

★ Chorus ★
These are the worst gaming failures of 2023
Bad games, bad press, and bad choices; the products of corporate greed
And all of it is so trite; it's just so hard to believe
These are the worst gaming failures (Worst gaming failures)
These are the worst gaming failures (Worst gaming failures)
These are the worst gaming failures of 2023