[Update 8/8/2018: IGN has fired Filip Miucin for plagiarism]
[Original story:] IGN has removed the Nintendo Switch review for Dead Cells after being notified of the plagiarism charge. The accusation of plagiarism first popped up after YouTuber Boomstick Gaming noticed that IGN made almost identical comments in their review of Dead Cells, where contributor Filip Miucin basically repeated Boomstick’s review almost word for word in some parts.
Boomstick originally published their Nintendo Switch review of Dead Cells on July 24th. IGN published their article and video review on August 6th.
You can listen to and watch the comparisons between both reviews below, courtesy of Boomstick Gaming.
There’s also a transcript comparing both versions of the reviews, and it’s pretty obvious that there’s a lot of similarities between the two. In fact, if you read an archive of Miucin’s written review that was pulled from IGN, you can tell that there are almost identical similarities between the text that Miucin writes and what Boomstick is saying in his own review. Even the commenters on the IGN review page called out the piece for copying Boomstick’s video.
When the issue of plagiarism was brought to IGN’s attention, the outlet pulled the review and posted up a message on August 6th, 2018, where it 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.”
What really set off the red flags for most was the fact that the timing of the videos were almost identical with the subject matter and critiques. It’s completely possible that Filip may have had similar criticisms of the game as Boomstick, but having the exact same criticisms and praises and expressing them at the exact same time stamps (and in two cases literally syncing up at the exact same second) seems almost too coincidental to be true.
Nevertheless, IGN definitely took the complaints and video evidence seriously, which is why the pulled the review and launched an investigation into the matter.
The review is still receiving attention on Twitter, though, where developer Motion Twin originally thanked Miucin for the review on IGN, even though many parts of it seem to be imitating what Boomstick Gaming had mentioned in their review weeks earlier.
You earned it! Thank you for making such an amazing game
— Filip Miucin (@FilipMiucin) August 6, 2018
It will be interesting to see what sort of verdict IGN comes to after investigating the matter.
(Thanks for the news tip Sharkpunch)
