Former IGN editor finally admits to copying review

The former editor of video game site IGN has finally admitted to lifting words from another review.

Filip Miucin was alleged to have plagiarized his review of the game Dead Cells from a review by the YouTube channel, Boomstick Gaming.

Miucin, who was fired from IGN shortly after the allegations surfaced in July last year, had said in August that any similarities in his review to Boomstick Gaming's was coincidental.

But his former employer begged to differ. IGN has since removed all of the posts written by Miucin. This was after people online found that a number of his articles and videos copied or rephrased from other websites without attribution.

“We’ve seen enough now, both from the thread and our own searches, that we’re taking down pretty much everything he did,” IGN reviews editor Dan Stapleton wrote on Twitter, referring to a thread on the gaming forum ResetEra cataloging the allegations.

Boomstick Gaming released its review on 24 July 2018. While Miucin's review came out on 6 August 2018. Here are some examples of the similarities between the two reviews, as catalogued by gaming site Kotaku:

Boomstick Gaming: “This combat system is fast, fluid, responsive, and one of the most rewarding representations of 2D combat of the entire genre.”

Miucin: “Fights are fast, fluid, responsive, and hands down one of the most gratifying representations of video game combat I’ve ever experienced.”

Boomstick Gaming: "In most games of this genre, your coolest skills and spells are often set to strictly long recharge timers or a limited mana system, but in Dead Cells, your abilities have incredibly quick recharges and allow you to seamlessly integrate these gadgets in normal encounters and it doesn’t make you feel penalized for using your cool stuff."

Miucin: "Most games limit your most useful skills with long cool-down timers or a limited mana system, but Dead Cells encourages you to use your deadliest gadgets with a fast recharge timer. It never punishes you for using your best tactics."

Besides the initial Dead Cells review on IGN, it has been revealed that Miucin had copied from a Nintendo Life review for FIFA 18 and an Engadget review of Samus Returns. Miucin also supposedly lifted from a post on an Internet forum in 2017 describing how Nintendo’s HD Rumble worked. And he copied the post wholesale, word for word, for one of his video reviews on YouTube.

Miucin in his latest apology, which comes several months after losing his job at IGN, said that he was sorry to Boomstick Gaming for lifting their review. He also apologized to Nintendo Life, Nintendo Wire, Engadget, and Polygon as well as sources the articles he plagiarized. He finally apologized to his former employer IGN.