I think it was sometime in 2007 that I kinda lost my mind.

I'd moved out of my parent's house once again and moved to the city I now lived in. I was alone, living with roommates and I had a terrible job working overnight in a grocery store.

I'll admit that my reaction to Bethesda's Fallouts has never been reasonable or measured. I am not blind to my own nostalgia for the series.

This is not even the first time a game has been released in a beloved series that I didn't like. I think it's a shame what they did to Shining Force, I was bummed out about the Bard's Tale Diablo clone they released, and I even kinda liked the Shadowrun FPS. Only one game series reboot has truly broken my heart.

As previews and press releases began to trickle out it became very clear; this was all my fears for Bethesda made manifest. It was first person. It was real time. Dialogue was simplified. The waypoint system of Oblivion was in in full effect.

So I was sad. I've been sad before, especially with Bethesda.

I and other folks on the internet, made our sadness known. I'll be the first to say, some of us were not cool about it. Wait, no I'm not the first, I'm really far down that list, actually.

Bethesda and the games media responded, as one could have predicted, with derision and dismissal.

In hindsight, after gamergate, the whole thing really looks very different to me.

This is tough to talk about. I've deleted and rewritten this part several times now.

I am not a gamergater. The mating habits of a game journalist are none of my concern.

But. And I KNOW, I really know how bad it is to have a but here. The truth is, game journalism is pretty terrible.

Indie games aren't paying for coverage. But AAA games sure are. When games are released and IGN holds week long promotions for them. After running banner ads for the game they release a glowing review as if it weren't a forgone conclusion.

Anita Sarkeesian isn't...wait, what is she supposed to have done? Anyway, she just makes videos. But big promoted events like Game Awards are actually vaguely evil, based on marketing budget and sales numbers, with little to nothing to do with quality or integrity.

I understand that these complaints, beyond being far more reasonable than the actual GamerGate arguments, aren't really about gaming. They are really down to the effects of capitalism. Our society rewards a laser focus on what will make you money. Companies aren't our friends, they're want to make a profit. This isn't a moral judgement on them, mind, it's just a fact. Without that sponsorship money, there would BE no Game awards. There would be no IGn.

Part of my mistake with Bethesda was to confuse this with a personal affront, but in truth, Bethesda doesn't know me. They don't care enough to insult me.

More than that, I feel like my complaints about Fallout are better than the Gamergaters fabricated complaints with game journalism because they are truer, but ultimately the truth of the complaints in no way effects whether it was ok for people to act the way they did, or whether it was ok to stand at the sidelines and cheer on a side that was acting out just because I believed some of the same things.

I was able to see that when Gamegate happened, just not for Fallout, and I'm ashamed I didn't do more to stand up against abuse at the time.

It's a hard lesson to learn.

Now I still don't like what Bethesda did to Fallout, and I won't be playing any of their games, but at the same time I'm learning to let go off just how angry it all made me.

Next time: we focus on the things that actually made me so mad.

I...I really should have done this in a different order...