IGN has pulled their video review of Dead Cells by their Nintendo editor Filip Miucin after accusations the video was plagiarized.
The video is extremely similar to YouTuber Boomstick Gaming’s [easyazon_link identifier=”B07DGV72YF” locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Dead Cells[/easyazon_link] review which he uploaded on July 24th. IGN would release their review on August 6.
Along with highly addictive and rewarding gameplay, Dead Cells delivers one of the most satisfying and well-designed action roguelite experiences you can currently play.
Video: https://t.co/ugiYb8UNn8 pic.twitter.com/UCMJet21Sc— Filip Miucin (@FilipMiucin) August 6, 2018
Miucin previously Tweeted that this was his first video review that he’s edited.
Finishing up my Dead Cells review this weekend. It’s the first IGN video review I’ve edited myself, and I can’t wait to share it with you all. If you still haven’t seen Dead Cells in action, check out the first 21 minutes on Nintendo Switch!
Video: https://t.co/xIwXGxKlDv pic.twitter.com/0Ympm06Rx6— Filip Miucin (@FilipMiucin) August 5, 2018
To showcase the similarities in the videos Boomstick Gaming would release a new video with the two video reviews side by side, titled “IGN Copied my Dead Cells Review: What do I do?”
The video would quickly go viral. As of this writing it has over 215,00 views.
IGN would respond by taking down both their video review and written review of [easyazon_link identifier=”B07DGV72YF” locale=”US” tag=”boundingintocomics-20″]Dead Cells[/easyazon_link]. They would leave an editor’s note on the page which reads:
“As a group of writers and creators who value our own work and that of others in our field, the editorial staff of IGN takes plagiarism very seriously. In light of concerns that have been raised about our Dead Cells review, we’ve removed it for the time being and are investigating.”
Boomstick Gaming’s Alex spoke with Forbes about the accusation of plagiarism against IGN and whether it could have happened before.
“I have no knowledge of any of my other content being used by anyone else online. I have regularly frequented IGN for about two decades now and you could imagine my surprise when I was perusing their latest review and started to slowly notice my sentence structuring as well as my own thoughts, being used throughout the review.”
Alex did make it clear that he did not want IGN’s Nintendo editor Filip Miucin to be fired.
“At this time I have not been contacted back by IGN, but I would like to be cited, collaborated with, and compensated for the healthy ad revenue they pulled in on both their written review and video review. As for the author Filip, this was his first video review for IGN and it is slightly understandable to seek knowledge from someone who has done multiple reviews before, but it should not have been replicated in this manner. I foster no ill will towards Filip and do not encourage firing of this gentleman because I have been unemployed (business closure) for 6 months now and would not wish this burden on anyone. I have been doing YouTube since 2006 as a hobby and have found somewhat of a following in 2018. A few months ago I started a Patreon that attempts to help me continue what I enjoy doing by accepting donations from fans of my videos, but have seen little to no success.”
Forbes contributor Paul Tassi explained his involvement in past plagiarism investigations and what IGN could be undergoing at this moment.
“What happens now is that the editorial team will have to first decide whether or not this constitutes plagiarism (not looking great on that front), and then they’ll have to go through all of this author’s past work to try and deduce if anything else he’s written or scripted has been plagiarized, and disclose if that is the case. Taking phrasing a from a video script is a lot harder to trace than it would be copying and pasting someone’s lines from a review, as that’s not nearly as easily searchable online. And yet this was still discovered all the same, and if this has happened before, I’m guessing that’s going to come to light.”
We reached out to Alex as well where he echoed his statement to Forbes regarding the situation.
“I have visited IGN daily for nearly two decades and you could imagine how surprised I was when I was casually reading their review for the game Dead Cells and started to see my own thoughts and perspectives in the writing. I contacted IGN that day about the situation to give them a heads up on the issue (this was before all this was news worthy) and they have not yet contacted me back as of 12:30pm CST 8/7/2018.”
He also reiterated he does not think this is a repeated practice.
“I do not think this is regular practice for games journalist or writers at IGN. The writer of this review was attempting his first ever video review and it is expected he would seek knowledge from more experienced reviewers but the way in which he went about it, was not the correct way.”
He does hope that Filip Miucin learns from his mistake.
“Hopefully the writer will learn from his mistakes and will continue his work at IGN with greater caution and awareness, in the future.”
We did ask him if he’s reached out to a lawyer and he told us that he did not want to disclose that information to us.
Former World of Warcraft Vanilla Team Leader Mark Kern had a troubling, yet insightful Tweet about the situation and his own ideas of how common plagiarism is:
IGN and the rest of mainstream media is not only #fakenews but also likes to plagiarize work. Usually they just mine Reddit and Twitter for stories but this time they ripped off someone wholesale. https://t.co/S3MykFNq83
— Mark Kern (@Grummz) August 7, 2018
Ethics in gaming journalism has been a hot topic over the last few years. With this case coming to light, it seems that the topic will again reignite interest in the ethical practices of certain gaming journalist websites.