IGN scraps Dead Cells indie game review following plagiarism accusations

[Polycount]

The gaming news industry may be full of competing writers, YouTubers, and Twitch personalities, but there's generally a certain level of professional respect between them, even if their opinions and goals differ.

It seems that respect may not have extended to IGN's review of recently-launched Metroidvania title Dead Cells, though. The entertainment news giant has been accused of plagiarizing content from YouTuber "Boomstick Gaming."

Boomstick's video review was published last week, and IGN's review (written by Editor Filip Miucin) was posted just yesterday.

After viewing IGN's review and noticing a number of striking similarities between it and his own review, Boomstick made a video titled "IGN Copied my Dead Cells Review: What do I do?" where he directly compares the two pieces of content.

I've seen both reviews myself, and I can definitely say something fishy is going on here. Though Miucin's wording is different, his overall sentence structure and ideas are nearly identical to Boomstick's in most cases. For example (via Kotaku):

Boomstick: Dead Cells only falters slightly with some repetition setting in, especially on the early areas and during longer play sessions.

Miucin: Dead Cells does falter slightly with some repetition but it’s only felt in its earlier areas and during extended play sessions.

After the situation picked up traction with other news outlets, IGN opted to pull the review while it performed its own internal investigation.

It should be noted that, regardless of whether or not IGN made a mistake here, Miucin is only one employee among dozens at the outlet.

His actions -- if they were indeed intentional -- do not necessarily mirror the rest of the staff's. Furthermore, Miucin notes that the review was the first he'd edited by himself, so it's likely he won't repeat this mistake in the future.

With that said, this is still a bad look for IGN, and it's certainly an issue they need to address sooner rather than later.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/75863-ign-scraps-dead-cells-indie-game-review-following.html

 

[m4a4]

Pretty sure that I read somewhere else that the writer has already been fired from IGN.

 

[Axiarus]

People still look at IGN's content? They have been shady for over a decade.

 

[SirChocula]

People still look at IGN's content? They have been shady for over a decade.

IGN, Kotaku, Polygon, & Rock Paper Shotgun are all "gaming journalists" sites that should be avoided like the plague. I've boycotted all of them for years and will continue to do so.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

LOL game journalism.

 

[texasrattler]

People still look at IGN's content? They have been shady for over a decade.

IGN, Kotaku, Polygon, & Rock Paper Shotgun are all "gaming journalists" sites that should be avoided like the plague. I've boycotted all of them for years and will continue to do so.

Yet they are all used as references on this site and several others. Even the popular Steam link their articles. So why you may not like them, the world reads them all the time because the big boys keep showing their content.

 

[SirChocula]

Yet they are all used as references on this site and several others. Even the popular Steam link their articles. So why you may not like them, the world reads them all the time because the big boys keep showing their content.

I could care less what the big "boys" do. They all push a political agenda and it's clear as day. A person is blind as a bat if they can't see the sh*t they push out to the masses. One recent example is Jessica Price over at Arena.net; she's a nasty feminist who berates her followers, yet all the "big boys" twist the story and try to turn the opinion to make her into the victim.

You have a brain, use it to think critically instead of "hey, that's what everyone is doing".

 

[merikafyeah]

Why though? Game reviewer doesn't have the time to play the game he's supposed to review? What's he doing? Playing OTHER games?! If you want to phone it in, then phone it in and maybe get flak for one review. Plagiarizing will end your career and it's just plain low.