IGN's Dead Cells Review Has Been Removed

I was hanging out over at the Dead Cells reddit throughout the day today, and this popped up.

Now IGN's Dead Cells review has been removed due to concerns over plagiarism that Boomstick Gaming's channel raised, claiming IGN's video review plagiarized many of his review points, even down to the structure of both reviews. Pretty darn spot on, it seems.

No word from author Filip Miucin yet.

http://ca.ign.com/articles/2018/08/06/dead-cells-review-removed

Pretty messy.

Ouch.

Sounds like someone at IGN is going to get fired.

Wow. That's incredibly blatant. Hard to imagine how someone can continue a career as journalist after pretty much being caught red handed copying someone else's work.

This sounds like a problem with a specific employee and not a problem with IGN as a whole. I mean...it's kinda absurd to believe IGN cross-checks every single review with every single Youtube video out there. Nevertheless, I predict the Internet is going to have a fucking field day with this one. Ah, well.

Hopefully, they fire the person responsible, issue an apology, and just move on.

@babychoochoo: Yeah, I made sure to mention Filip was the author in my first post. IGN has been swift with their reaction to this and taking their review down.

How hard is it to BS an opinion about a game anyway, especially if you haven't played it? That's the Internet's bread and butter!

How did this guy ever think copying somebody else's work and presenting it as his own was gonna fly?

I don't go on IGN anymore because of some of the staff there, so... yeah. That said, I just had to track down the guys Twitter to see what people were saying to him. Yeah, it's pretty bad. I feel kind of bad for him (maybe I shouldn't, I don't know), but if it's true that he did that, he is either stressed with the time he has to do the review (I don't know how it works at IGN) and can't find the time to write it himself, or he just doesn't know how to write a review well and so resorted to plagiarism. Either way, not a good thing, and he thought he might get away with that? His Twitter starts out with the developers saying 'thanks man!' and then after a few comments, it dissolves into 'you hack!' from other people.

@inresurrection: Oh sorry, haha, I didn't mean to direct that at you. Just sorta kinda thinking out loud.

@frodobaggins:The Youtuber in question has only 12k subscribers. I'm just gonna assume the IGN author thought no one would notice because it wasn't from a big channel. And now we know how that turned out.

@babychoochoo: the author of the original review would know though, and IGN is a huge website so the odds of this guy going there just to check out others reviews of a game he's just reviews himself i' d think would be pretty high. Guess the dude at IGN didn't.

This is kind of wild. Looks like we have a good news story to hear them cover on the Bombcast this week.

@ntm: The internet will throw the worst at him, as they always do.

I'm glad for him that he got caught, it seems like he bit more than he could chew over there. Working at IGN is probably stressful with it being one of the biggest gaming sites out there, and it seems like he couldn't keep up with the demand, at least that's my guess.

Hopefully he does some self reflection and improves himself to know his limits.

This is what happens when you commit to reviewing every game as fast as possible.

@vrjosh: you don’t really need a journalism degree to write opinions about videogames and it would be a serious bummer if a guy with a serious degree like that, where they teach you about ethics and such would stoop so low as to copy a review for a game. Especially a game like Dead Cells. I understand if you’re new at the job and they tell you to play and review one of those complex, turn based civilization style games when you haven’t ever touched one - that would seem very daunting, although would never excuse what he did. But who knows man, IGN wasn’t exactly setting a high bar with their reviews in the past. That said this stink will stick around IGN for a long while and will probably follow the guy until he changes fields or becomes a producer that is never seen or mentioned. People will never let it go and his reviews are never going to be taken seriously again.

@humanity: I'm not sure, but I'd assume IGN would expect you to have a degree or equivalent to work there as a writer.

The sad thing about this story, to me, isn't that he copied the work. It's that he felt he had to do it because he was probably put under a lot of pressure to get something out on a deadline.

I don’t buy the “he was under pressure! It was his first review!”

Plagarism is a capital sin in the literary world. I would never, ever hire him for a writing position again and I hope no one else ever does, either.

@bobeta: is copying (or in other words "stealing") really that irredeemable? I still think that context matters, though I can't say I really know what happened behind the scenes with him.

@bobeta: To be fair, there is absolutely no excuse. Surely he's proven himself as a decent writer before he got this position?

I haven't looked into this story beyond that link, so I don't know who the guy is.

Holy shit. Yeah, that's pretty blatant. That IGN review comes across as, "didn't read the textbook until the night before the paper was due, so let me re-arrange every other sentence."

This is embarrassing in a way that makes me cringe a little. I checked out Filip's other video reviews and they're very generic & quick (~3 min) focusing on the technical aspects...with no personal anecdotes of his experience or editorial voice, so I'm wondering if it's the first time he's done this, or what other games journalists have plagiarized less popular YouTubers or websites. In his Skyrim for Switch review (695,000 views) he pronounces the word foliage as "foilage" like he's never seen that word before.

The guy in question - Filip Miucin - was himself a youtuber who focused on Nintendo with his channel FILIP. He got big around the time the Switch launched and IGN hired him off the back off that. He also doesn't have a degree or a history in journalism. I think you're expecting too much of IGN to think that they'd require their personalities in 2018 to have degrees in journalism since that has honestly never mattered at all in video games journalism and couldn't be any closer to the truth in 2018.

@jesus_phish: Thanks for the info. I'd have expected a giant, which people want to work for, to have a high standard when employing writers. As I said though, I wouldn't know for sure and this is only based on what I know about looking for work outside of the industry.

I don't think I'm quite used to the 'influencer' attitude towards video game coverage yet. It seems I've lost touch, somewhat.

In a little defense of IGN, I'd assume they're as surprised about this as we all are and wouldn't think someone on their books would resort to this. They seems to have as least acknowledged what's happened and in the process of making a decision on it pretty quickly, however this won't do them any favours to their already diminished reputation and I wouldn't be surprised if they are a lot more strict in the process reviews are made for the site in response.

Wow, that is very blatant. Very shitty to rip off a small YouTube channels video like that. Doesn't matter if the IGN reviewer had a tough deadline or whatever the reason. You don't copy someones work like that.

I don't think the dude should get fired for it necessarily, but that's for IGN to handle. I mean it's understandable if he does, I just hope he doesn't get harassed and mobbed over it.

They've gone downhill ever since Naomi left them.

@boonsong: It's possible IGN could just give him a "This is your last warning" kind of ultimatum and that would be enough for him to carry on without copying other reviews.

It's pretty accurate what you are suggesting that the Internet will probably lay into his mistake for a while and it'll be difficult for him to drop that tag of "that one guy that plagiarized a Youtuber's review for IGN" even if he goes on to make plenty of other reviews on his own without any copying.

Of all the sites that didn't need a scandal like this, IGN certainly tops the list, since their reputation is already so iffy to begin with. Not to mention this does nothing to help the perception that some people in games media treat covering games like a factory assembly line where almost no thought goes into it. There are so many good places covering games these days it's a shame this will definitely dog people for awhile - not just this guy.

From what I've read it definitely seems like the guy shouldn't have been covering games to begin with, since it doesn't seem like he's ever had much interesting to say about them.

While plagiarism sucks, I do echo the sentiment of some that I feel bad for him on some level. He should just delete his Twitter account now because it's not going to be anything good from a certain segment of the community for a long time, maybe ever.

I also feel really bad for whatever managing editor probably feels like shit over this as well. If there was one (I assume there was, but having something like this sneak through is always makes you wonder). Regardless though, you can't catch everything, but I'm sure whomever was feels terrible.

Damn, this is shitty as hell. Note how the original review had ~14k views at the time when the comparison video in the OP was made. He deliberately went after a very small channel hoping this would not be discovered.

Is it funny how timid he seems at the beginning of calling it out "not that similar" to the first lines even though I find them EXTREMELY similar? Obviously if the rest weren't similar it wouldn't really matter, but...

It's too bad. This is gonna hurt IGN and the reviewer for what amounts to someone doing a stupid thing that so easily could have been avoided. I don't really use IGN anymore, that was mostly pre-giantbomb for me, but this doesn't help anyone. Punishment at his job is what the guy deserves though, not the mob that already hate IGN(you know, the company currently about to apologize and probably punish the reviewer) going after it and him like zealots.

Who the hell still goes to IGN anyway? This guy either needs to resign, or get fired, without a doubt.

Oh no, let's all feel bad for Filip - the man working for a gaming site that couldn't describe a game for 4 minutes without stealing most of another person's review.

@hankrazorbeard: I don't think anyone feels bad for him.

@hankrazorbeard: It's a little presumptuous saying that one employee represents an entire site.

Eh...I do. I mean, what he did was ethically wrong and he should be punished for it, but he's also going to get a an excessive amount of crap for it from aspects of the community and a large portion of that crap will inevitably be in bad faith. People screw up at their jobs all of the time, and the punishment should be enough...but, where I feel bad, particularly within this community, is that to many that still isn't enough.

It’s the fact that this is so public that makes me feel that it’s a shitty situation all around. He made a bad decision but that doesn’t mean he’s a shitty person. But now this story has eyes on it from people who in their minds just wants to see another ”unethical games journalist” go down.

@ripelivejam: It is weird. Pretty much everything mentioned in the review could be inferred by pre-release details: "you're gonna die a lot and need to adapt. This procedurally generated game gets repetitive occasionally. Etc." Mix that in with some personal opinion, boom: BS review.

Or take a huge chance just to look slightly more professional and end up getting your ass fired (probably).

I think what I got out of this is that there are still a lot of reviews out there that sound like they could’ve been written 12 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, plagiarism is serious, but I’m almost as concerned that mainstream gaming outlets still run reviews filled with the most generic “explain every feature in a bullet point fashion” prose imaginable.

@sethmode: Of course it sucks and I hope no one is sending him death threats, like Sean Murray. However, he knew the level he was operating at when he stole the work from someone else.

Sadly, the internet is vile and he will probably continue to pay for this as long as he is in the public eye.

I acknowledge that it sucks for him, but I do not feel bad for him in the slightest. He had a chance and he blew it.

On the one hand, Twitter is going to suck for him for awhile.

On the other, I tend to agree with Jim Sterling's take where he says he was nearly as offended by the sheer stupidity of it as he was with the actual fact of it happening. You are taught plagiarism is a Very Bad Thing starting in about the 3rd grade. It's in virtually every set of academic regulations from that point on and is one of the few things that will reliably get you expelled from just about any reputable academic institution.

Well....BoomStick Gamings user base may have just increased....heck I never knew they existed but now am checking out their YouTube Channel....congrats boomstick.

As someone who used to write for an independent gaming journalism site, I don't feel bad for this dude in the slightest. Did he really think this would fly? Jesus.

You know, every now and then there would be a game I would have to review and I REALLY didn't have any direction due to me being unfamiliar with the genre or something. For example, I had to review a baseball game once. I don't know anything about baseball or that franchise. So what I admittedly did was I did peep at some other people's reviews to try and get some inspiration, ideas, or a better understanding of the thing I played. But never did I just copy crap. What I was saying were still my own opinions on the game I played, just with the aid of some more well-informed knowledge.

It's really not hard to BS a review tbh. I do feel bad for IGN as a whole. They really don't need this

Yeah this is a terrible look for IGN, one of the biggest names in video game journalism (and multi media journalism really). Filip should have at least made a much stronger effort in making his review feel more distinct than the Boomstick Gaming one. I don't know much about Filip Miucin on whether he's an experienced writer for IGN, but sounds like he's gonna lose his job over this. Don't plagiarize people. Be more original in your own writing.

@dpedal1: Haha. Didn't even think about that. What a golden ticket!

Sure, nobody should get away with plagiarism, but it sucks that people on the internet will take it upon themselves to reprimand the reviewer. I kind of feel bad for him; that was my first reaction when I first read the story. Also, what are the chances that we're jumping the gun on this one? I mean there has been no reporting on the story.

@gunflame88: I follow the PS4 sub-reddit and you'll see this kind of thing pop up there time and time again, usually around big releases. The story is always identical. A big channel with hundreds of thousands of subscribers will copy work from a much, much, much smaller channel, sometimes even straight up reupload footage from the original video. And because the person running that smaller channel usually ends up being a fan of the bigger channel, they go to check out the new video and find that it's their own work with a new voice over.

@militantfreudian: IGN took down the review for an investigation hours ago. Plenty of outlets have already reported on it. Just go watch the comparison video that the original creator made, or just watch both of them one after the other. He's not just hitting a few buzzwords over and over. This is a textbook case of when people don't do their own work, copy someone else and then just change a few words here and there to try and trick whatever plagiarism software their college uses to detect that kind of behaviour.