You are right. Checked myself and the caps says "lock" not "unlock" on the original video.
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IGN removes their Dead Cells Review, investigating plagiarism. (Update: Writer Responds)
- Thread starter Chessguy1
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You are right. Checked myself and the caps says "lock" not "unlock" on the original video.
This leads me to think it's a mixture of both reviewers liberally lifting from the same press kit, and the end result being eerily similar. Which is lazy in any case. I don't think anyone would openly plagarise from a YouTube influencer with 100,000s of views and not think they wouldn't get found out. But then, some people do crazy things. So I don't know.
I like Filip, and he seems like a genuinely nice guy, so I was shocked to hear about this on the NVC Facebook page. The comparisons are way too similar to be coincidence (I haven't looked through the press kit), and this could potentially destroy his career.
IGN has been having a rough time between HR investigations and hosting personalities leaving.
IGN has been having a rough time between HR investigations and hosting personalities leaving.
Same, hoping by morning this makes big news so boomstick can get a few thousand subs from this.
Yeah, not that it changes much, but if that's a major sticking point for people it's probably important that the information being spread is correct.
The only thing I can think of is maybe Filip was feeling the pressure of editing his first review and didn't have time to pull it all together before deadline?
Either way, that video was cringeworthy. Totally plagiarized. I don't know how you'd think you were going to get away with it in today's online world, either.
Sidenote, I used to love NVC but I find Filip incredibly awkward to the point of ruining the podcast for me sometimes.
It's funny. I swore he said unlock originally, but yeah he says lock. Doesn't help the IGN reviewer though. He makes the same exact point, but makes a single mistake. Like on a math test, a cheater wouldn't realize that single mistake invalidates the entire point.
Why would sites report about something that happened at a competitor?
Yep. I have no idea why SG-17 is giving the benefit of the doubt to such an obvious plagiarist who is caught in classic cheater style by copying a mistake.
well yeah, large portions of the review can be completely different, but it only takes a single stolen line from another work to be considered plagiarism. And the IGN review has several.
They would just have to be prepared for me to always turn the conversation back to RPGs and a proper Paper Mario.
Not quite as simple as that, as a lot of the plagiarised stuff seems to be verbatim lifted from the press/dev site --> https://www.terminals.io/product?pid=303
But I agree, it could also just be plain old plagiarism.
Filip seems like a nice guy, but the few times I've listened to NVC since he took over, he's rarely added anything to it. Just kinda echoes people, which is ironic, given this.
It's still plagiarism to lift text from press releases for a review without proper attribution.
If the only similarities were that they used the same terms like Metroidvania, maybe. The wording is all too similar and even the points being made in the same order.
It just seems too similar to be purely coincidental, but I guess there is always a chance.
What was copied verbatim from that site? The one reviewer who replied to the NVC Facebook thread, when asked if the reviews sounded anything like press site material, said not really.
The IGN review doesn't just copy bullet-point information from the press kit. If both reviews simply described the game using similar language ("tight combat", "Metroidvania roguelite", etc.), it would probably be too difficult to come up with a conclusion either way. However, critiques and opinions are shared between the two reviews and are done so either word-for-word or through very obvious paraphrasing. The closing remarks in particular are eerily similar. There's really no debate here. It's incredibly blatant that Filip viewed the other review at some point before penning his. If you put both reviews through an online plagiarism filter that many schools use these days, Filip would either be forced to re-write his review or he'd be severely punished.
There's barely any reason to give benefit of the doubt when the shared thoughts being lifted by the plagiarist are not even rephrased. If this was done at the college level the IGN writer would be out on his ass faster than you can say Metroidvania.
All true. I want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but again, that might be me being naive.
The speed running like about how they encourage it I've seen used by Motion Twin themselves, but you're right, it might just be a couple of generic terms.
The games journalist/critic industry is already so fucking volatile, I have no idea why you would just burn your entire reputation like this just to take a cheap short cut.
It's hard to imagine something lazier than avoiding playing a video game for money.
Why? You seem to be thinking this is a rewrite of a press release, but press releases don't usually include criticisms about their games.
Filip was playing this game on stream yesterday right? Did anybody tune in and get a sense for how good he was at the game?
I'd like to imagine this was more of the result of desperation - perhaps because he couldn't beat the game in time - than it was flagrant disregard for the rules.
I'd like to imagine this was more of the result of desperation - perhaps because he couldn't beat the game in time - than it was flagrant disregard for the rules.
Dude should have plagiarized the "right way"
Anyways, its mess up for the IGN reviewer to be copying a YT review when he is actually getting paid to review the damn game.
Anyways, its mess up for the IGN reviewer to be copying a YT review when he is actually getting paid to review the damn game.
Not quite all their fault, but it is something that slipped through. For somebody that's new to editing, they should have processes in place. Unfortunately IGN is desperately "open for growth" so I doubt they even have a fact checking team, as that slows down content creation.
Some of you are acting like these reviews read just like fact-sheets or something. They actually give their opinions on the game. And they're the same.
To (sort of) play devil's advocate, I have a hard time believing he straight up didn't play the game. He mentions in the tweet it's his first time editing a video review. He probably just simply either didn't have what it takes to make one or didn't trust himself enough and relied on another person's video as a guide. Not much better for a game journalist but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he played the game... But definitely looks like he plaigerized.
Except these developers have been fairly open about their game, from the dev blogs on bugs and glitches. One of the hot topics about the game is how they simplified one of the game's most challenging levels to make it quicker and a bit easier, which was done in an open discussion.
The sad truth is that for the longest time, popular game criticism hasn't exactly been thought provoking. How many reviews follow a basic checklist of story/gameplay/graphics/sound without going in-depth on any particular item and then just slapping a score on it? There are some very talented reviewers out there that put in the time and effort to do their research and write thoughtful reviews (and many more such writers compared to even fifteen years ago), but you've also got the people who just shortcut their way to a review and call it a day so that they can move on to whatever game they're reviewing next.
Game critic seemed like the most fun job to me until I grew to appreciate these guy's deadline. Beat a game without a guide in a week or two, write review then take shit from everyone that didn't play the game.
Still no excuse tho.
Video put out by a small youtuber comparing IGN's video to his own.
Current page of Dead Cells review on IGN.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/06/dead-cells-review
Current page of Dead Cells review on IGN.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/08/06/dead-cells-review
Damn
That might be a first for me. I've never heard of a review ripping off another review before. I'm not going to hold IGN accountable though. This is on the individual 100%. Sucks.
That might be a first for me. I've never heard of a review ripping off another review before. I'm not going to hold IGN accountable though. This is on the individual 100%. Sucks.
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