IGN review for Dead Cells redacted due to plagiarism

[Hero-of-Time]

So people are starting to dig through Filip's past reviews ( always going to happen ) and have came across this.

 

 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Hero-of-Time

[Happenstance]

This could maybe use its own thread. Its been split over two different ones at the moment.

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, Happenstance said:

This could maybe use its own thread. Its been split over two different ones at the moment.

Indeed. Any chance of a thread merge/clean up @Ike

[Ronnie]

Hopefully the witch hunt against him won't run and run. He made a big mistake, he's paid for it with his job, and reputation. That tweet is from four years ago, so let's not ridicule and drag him through the mud even more than he already has been.

Edited August 8, 2018 by Ronnie

[Ronnie]

That weasel Schreier keen to keep the witch hunt going it seems...

[Hero-of-Time]

Just now, Ronnie said:

That weasel Schreier keen to keep the witch hunt going it seems...

Thing is, it's just showing people that this isn't an isolated incident and that Filip has been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes for a while now. While I agree there shouldn't be a witch hunt, it's still worth pointing things like this out because his next employer may have given him the benefit of the doubt that the Dead Cells review was a one time thing. 

[Ronnie]

Just now, Hero-of-Time said:

Thing is, it's just showing people that this isn't an isolated incident and that Filip has been pulling the wool over everyone's eyes for a while now. While I agree there shouldn't be a witch hunt, it's still worth pointing things like this out because his next employer may have given him the benefit of the doubt that the Dead Cells review was a one time thing. 

You're right. Hopefully now that he's made his point, he'll stop pushing it over and over for clicks and column inches.

[Hero-of-Time]

So IGN have just posted their Monster Hunter World review for the PC and apparently the Youtube comments are mostly about the Filip incident, with many down voting the review. The guy has done some MAJOR damage to the IGN brand and it's going to take a lot to shake this off.

[Happenstance]

Always going to be the way isn’t it. I remember people on here a few years ago claiming Gamespot were anti Nintendo because of some writer who wasn’t even on staff anymore. 

[Ike]

35 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Indeed. Any chance of a thread merge/clean up @Ike

Done. I'm in my phone so sorry if the thread doesn't make sense now.

Don't be afraid to start new threads, not everything needs to go in one mega thread.

[drahkon]

Just now, Ike said:

Done. I'm in my phone so sorry if the thread doesn't make sense now.

You need help? We could get you out of there.

#bobjoke

[Hero-of-Time]

4 minutes ago, Ike said:

Done. I'm in my phone so sorry if the thread doesn't make sense now.

Don't be afraid to start new threads, not everything needs to go in one mega thread.

Cheers, Ike.

I would have but the conversation had already started in two other threads.  

[Ronnie]

56 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

So IGN have just posted their Monster Hunter World review for the PC and apparently the Youtube comments are mostly about the Filip incident, with many down voting the review. The guy has done some MAJOR damage to the IGN brand and it's going to take a lot to shake this off.

The gaming community at its finest. Pathetic.

I know they're probably kids and the COD hardcore but the point stands I think. The community has a habit of not only going OTT, but also holding that OTT grudge for a long time.  It's so tedious and immature. 

Edited August 8, 2018 by Ronnie

[Ganepark32]

1 hour ago, Ronnie said:

The gaming community at its finest. Pathetic.

I know they're probably kids and the COD hardcore but the point stands I think. The community has a habit of not only going OTT, but also holding that OTT grudge for a long time.  It's so tedious and immature. 

Sadly, it's an attitude that seems to have only gotten worse over the last 10 years or so within the gaming community. Whether it's the constant abuse of female developers by a select group of people believing that said developer is turning the game into a "sjw mess", the general apathy towards anything other than a triple A title (Such as the bashing of indie games which is so prevalent around the net these days) or the witch hunts that happen with regards to either journalists or developers making mistakes (the Sean Murray saga stands as perhaps one example of that and how disgusting some within the community can be), there's a remarkable amount of negativity within gaming and it seems as though there's no end in sight.

With regards to IGN and Filip, the right outcome has come about as plagiarism has no place in journalism and diminishes the integrity of many good working people doing reviews. He's made the mistake and needs to lie with it, it's cost him his job so hopefully it'll have him taking a good long look at his skill set and get him to change how he reviews games, should he continue in the industry.

It's disheartening to see the disgusting comments but as I say, it's so prevalent it's hard to see how things will change. Take the indie games situation. There's a very vocal portion of the gaming community who will bad mouth and baulk at the thought of an indie game and you can see it everywhere there's a comment section or message board. Hell, I vaguely remember there being even a similar mentality amongst a very small number of people here years back which has thankfully gone (though I wonder if the success of the Switch and the strong push of indie games by Nintendo in place of the level of third party support the other consoles has pushed this frame of mind).

I don't get that mentality and it was something I was thinking about a lot a couple of weeks back. I was writing an article looking at the issue as well as the effect that things like YouTube and Twitch have on said indie games and how that shapes perception in some cases but it's something I've put a pin in for the time being as it's not something I'd have a place to publish to start a discussion on.

But it's a perfect example of the growing mentality of the gaming community, not all of it but definitely some of it. And that extends to the current situation with IGN and plagiarism which isn't isolated yo this incident. Other YouTubers have come out to say they've been plagiarized, Jim Sterling mentioned how he'd been plagiarized in his video on the subject yesterday and I've seen outlets like GameSpot openly reporting news as if they're the ones breaking it when it's been other outlets and not giving the credit for it until commenters have pointed it out.

Will it change any time soon? Probably not but I feel it's damaging the industry and definitely how people consume the media from it, whether they choose to support games or not. I just hope it opens a wider discussion on reviewer integrity and ethics as well as addressing the growing apathy in gaming.

[Fierce_LiNk]

6 minutes ago, Ganepark32 said:

Sadly, it's an attitude that seems to have only gotten worse over the last 10 years or so within the gaming community. Whether it's the constant abuse of female developers by a select group of people believing that said developer is turning the game into a "sjw mess", the general apathy towards anything other than a triple A title (Such as the bashing of indie games which is so prevalent around the net these days) or the witch hunts that happen with regards to either journalists or developers making mistakes (the Sean Murray saga stands as perhaps one example of that and how disgusting some within the community can be), there's a remarkable amount of negativity within gaming and it seems as though there's no end in sight.

With regards to IGN and Filip, the right outcome has come about as plagiarism has no place in journalism and diminishes the integrity of many good working people doing reviews. He's made the mistake and needs to lie with it, it's cost him his job so hopefully it'll have him taking a good long look at his skill set and get him to change how he reviews games, should he continue in the industry.

It's disheartening to see the disgusting comments but as I say, it's so prevalent it's hard to see how things will change. Take the indie games situation. There's a very vocal portion of the gaming community who will bad mouth and baulk at the thought of an indie game and you can see it everywhere there's a comment section or message board. Hell, I vaguely remember there being even a similar mentality amongst a very small number of people here years back which has thankfully gone (though I wonder if the success of the Switch and the strong push of indie games by Nintendo in place of the level of third party support the other consoles has pushed this frame of mind).

I don't get that mentality and it was something I was thinking about a lot a couple of weeks back. I was writing an article looking at the issue as well as the effect that things like YouTube and Twitch have on said indie games and how that shapes perception in some cases but it's something I've put a pin in for the time being as it's not something I'd have a place to publish to start a discussion on.

But it's a perfect example of the growing mentality of the gaming community, not all of it but definitely some of it. And that extends to the current situation with IGN and plagiarism which isn't isolated yo this incident. Other YouTubers have come out to say they've been plagiarized, Jim Sterling mentioned how he'd been plagiarized in his video on the subject yesterday and I've seen outlets like GameSpot openly reporting news as if they're the ones breaking it when it's been other outlets and not giving the credit for it until commenters have pointed it out.

Will it change any time soon? Probably not but I feel it's damaging the industry and definitely how people consume the media from it, whether they choose to support games or not. I just hope it opens a wider discussion on reviewer integrity and ethics as well as addressing the growing apathy in gaming.

Just out of curiosity, what other issues are IGN facing due to plagiarism?

Thanks for your post, I agree very much with what you're saying in it, especially your paragraph about plagiarism having no place in journalism. When thinking about this today, I thought about all of the options that were available to IGN. They could have suspended the guy, for example, instead of firing him. It's never nice to see somebody lose their job. But, in this instance, I think there's a strong argument to say that the right outcome has been reached. Aside from writing an article that's based on false information, there's nothing worse that a journalist could do than to plagiarise somebody else's work. I hope that lessons are learned from this and that it warns others off doing the same thing in future. 

Also, I think it's universally agreed that the YouTube comments sections are, for the most part, filled with absolute nonsense and horrible comments made by many people. It's the equivalent of Mos Eisley's spaceport/cantina. Occasionally, you'll come across a funny comment here and there, but there's also a lot of trash, too. It's similar to the comments you find in chatboxes on live streams, just terrible, really. I guess it's that old saying of giving "normal" people anonymity and an audience, and you get people who behave like absolute tools.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

17 hours ago, Ganepark32 said:

Will it change any time soon? Probably not but I feel it's damaging the industry and definitely how people consume the media from it, whether they choose to support games or not. I just hope it opens a wider discussion on reviewer integrity and ethics as well as addressing the growing apathy in gaming.

While what Filip done was certainly wrong, hopefully some good will come out of it. The integrity of a lot of reviewers has been in question for a while now and I know I find it hard to trust what many people put out there, whether it be by a video or written review. Also, it's a shame that written reviews and content are becoming less and less of a thing. I was reading a thread on ERA the other day and a person was asking others for help when it comes to setting up his own fan site and reviewing both retro and newer games. Most people said the same thing which was if they concentrated on written content then the site would be DOA. It's sad that it's come to this, where people can't actually make a dent unless they have YouTube videos with a thumbnail of themselves shouting about something. 

On one of his recent podcasts, Colin Moriarty was talking about the state of journalism in the gaming industry and how it's been a mess for a while now, with people using such things as YouTube for quick hits, rather than doing actual work. He mentions that doing actual journalism is hard but rewarding and there are far too few in the industry who actually want to put in the effort, which is why we are seeing every man and his dog trying to become a YouTube personality and hoping to make a living off of it. If I was a betting man, I would bet that things like Polygon's amazing Final Fantasy VII article or Waypoint's History of Halo didn't get as many views as things like click bait news pieces or random gaming YouTube videos and that just makes me sad, especially when you consider just how much time must have been spent putting these articles all together.

 

17 hours ago, Fierce_LiNk said:

Also, I think it's universally agreed that the YouTube comments sections are, for the most part, filled with absolute nonsense and horrible comments made by many people. It's the equivalent of Mos Eisley's spaceport/cantina. Occasionally, you'll come across a funny comment here and there, but there's also a lot of trash, too. It's similar to the comments you find in chatboxes on live streams, just terrible, really. I guess it's that old saying of giving "normal" people anonymity and an audience, and you get people who behave like absolute tools.

I've never understood the appeal of the comments section on live streaming ( or live streaming itself but that's a topic for another day ) due to how fast paced everything is. You see people posting random stuff and it's just looks like utter nonsense to me. There are far too many posting at the same time and a conversation can't really be had, so what's the point? When watching a live stream of a conference, hiding the comments section is the first thing I do.

Edited August 9, 2018 by Hero-of-Time

[Julius]

IGN have handled this extremely well, considering other negative setbacks that they’ve had in recent years.

I was certainly in the group that wasn’t a fan of Filip on NVC (he didn’t add much at all to the conversation, had poor knowledge when it came to Nintendo, wasn’t as charismatic as some other panelists, etc.; I’d love for Peer or Zach to lead it now, they were great during the transition period after Jose left), and though what he did is obviously wrong, I do feel sorry for his partner and his child, seeing as they made the expensive move to San Francisco with him. He might go back to his YouTube channel, but his potential career in any type of journalism has gone up in flames, and then some. He’ll be blacklisted by the industry for the rest of his working life for this. 

I have to agree with @Hero-of-Time that gaming journalism, and specifically reviews, isn’t in such a great place. I’m not the biggest fan of Colin Moriarty, but he does make some great points. The way I see it, there are just waaaaaaay too many fish in the pond at this point thanks to YouTube, and it just isn’t balanced. IGN have had some of the worst reviews that I’ve ever watched or read put out in recent years, yet they’re guaranteed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views every time that they upload a review. Some of the best reviews that I’ve seen recently have been from much smaller entities than IGN, but their quality and content is through the roof (places like Easy Allies, Gamespot’s YT channel gets pretty low viewing numbers for reviews, Super Bunnyhop, and some other, much more obscure channels).

I was listening to EZA’s Frame Trap the other day, and Ben Moore brought up how he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about music, because his lack of knowledge on the matter limits him to buzzwords and generic phrases like “the music perfectly matches the emotion of the game at certain times”, and so he doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial or worthwhile to the review. It’s funny, because this is exactly how I feel about the majority of reviews I read/watch by larger gaming journalism outlets these days: there’s a whole lot of buzzwords, and the review is probably over a thousand words long, but they’re saying a whole lot of nothing about the game. 

[Ronnie]

34 minutes ago, Julius Caesar said:

IGN have handled this extremely well, considering other negative setbacks that they’ve had in recent years.

I was certainly in the group that wasn’t a fan of Filip on NVC (he didn’t add much at all to the conversation, had poor knowledge when it came to Nintendo, wasn’t as charismatic as some other panelists, etc.; I’d love for Peer or Zach to lead it now, they were great during the transition period after Jose left), and though what he did is obviously wrong, I do feel sorry for his partner and his child, seeing as they made the expensive move to San Francisco with him. He might go back to his YouTube channel, but his potential career in any type of journalism has gone up in flames, and then some. He’ll be blacklisted by the industry for the rest of his working life for this. 

I have to agree with @Hero-of-Time that gaming journalism, and specifically reviews, isn’t in such a great place. I’m not the biggest fan of Colin Moriarty, but he does make some great points. The way I see it, there are just waaaaaaay too many fish in the pond at this point thanks to YouTube, and it just isn’t balanced. IGN have had some of the worst reviews that I’ve ever watched or read put out in recent years, yet they’re guaranteed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views every time that they upload a review. Some of the best reviews that I’ve seen recently have been from much smaller entities than IGN, but their quality and content is through the roof (places like Easy Allies, Gamespot’s YT channel gets pretty low viewing numbers for reviews, Super Bunnyhop, and some other, much more obscure channels).

I was listening to EZA’s Frame Trap the other day, and Ben Moore brought up how he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about music, because his lack of knowledge on the matter limits him to buzzwords and generic phrases like “the music perfectly matches the emotion of the game at certain times”, and so he doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial or worthwhile to the review. It’s funny, because this is exactly how I feel about the majority of reviews I read/watch by larger gaming journalism outlets these days: there’s a whole lot of buzzwords, and the review is probably over a thousand words long, but they’re saying a whole lot of nothing about the game. 

Did Colin talk about the Filip thing or is this from a previous podcast he did? Personally I'm a fan of Colin so when he talks I tend to listen, that said I think he gets a lot of things wrong and doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he knows. #Colinwaswrong

Can't agree that IGN have some of the worst reviews out there though, I think they do a good job on the whole, and tend to give a game to someone who has experience in that genre. They strike a good balance of diving into the game but not going too far dissecting every little system in it.

[Hero-of-Time]

15 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

Did Colin talk about the Filip thing or is this from a previous podcast he did? Personally I'm a fan of Colin so when he talks I tend to listen, that said I think he gets a lot of things wrong and doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he knows. #Colinwaswrong

It was a week or two ago when he spoke about journalism in the industry. It will be interesting to see if he has anything more to add now that all of this has happened.

[Happenstance]

Giant Bomb had an interesting discussion on reviews during the Bombcast this week after quickly talking about the plagiarism stuff. Starts off with just an email asking if they still enjoy writing but kind of evolves into Jeff talking about reviews. Its worth a listen.

Its at about 2:13 in the video.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

Interesting discussion,@Happenstance. 

I'm still a believer that a person should finish a game before giving their final thoughts. In the example that Jeff gives ( Crew 2 ) I can see where he is coming from but I think a reviewer should stipulate that they didn't actually finish the game. I know one or two reviews I've read in the past tend to say how many hours that the reviewer put into the game and it's something that I appreciate.

The point about games constantly evolving and being updated is another good discussion and I think Jeff is spot on in saying that a game can only be reviewed at the time of its release. 

I was hoping for more discussion about the written form vs videos but they didn't delve into it that much. What Jeff said about being able to get his thoughts out in a tweet rather than an article bummed me out a little because I know that's the case for a lot of the industry these days. 

[Happenstance]

3 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I'm still a believer that a person should finish a game before giving their final thoughts. In the example that Jeff gives ( Crew 2 ) I can see where he is coming from but I think a reviewer should stipulate that they didn't actually finish the game. I know one or two reviews I've read in the past tend to say how many hours that the reviewer put into the game and it's something that I appreciate.

I expect if they ever did start doing the kind of review then there would be some kind of notifier that the game was never finished. That’s kind of the point, they’d be telling people that this game is so bad that they either couldn’t finish it or simply didn’t see the point.

 

It is interesting though how as Jeff mentions, it’s harder these days to find someone’s full thoughts on a game unless you follow ough all their different media. I’m a premium member of GB so I know of Jeff’s dislike of the Crew 2 through various videos and discussions on the Bombcast but not everyone follows all that. Good though that they are actively thinking about stuff like that and their site could start to have sections under the game pages to at least show which videos/podcasts have opinions in or instead of having actual reviews, maybe just some kind of written summation of their thoughts.

[Hero-of-Time]

During their investigation IGN took a screenshot of Filip's playtime. 

So he at least did play the game ( although he could have had it sat on  the start screen for those hours ) and it looks to be a question of just not having the time or skill to come up with a review.

It looks like Zach is heading this weeks podcast and by all accounts the show is already better for it.

[Ronnie]

Yeah I always assumed he just wasn't very good at writing reviews.

[Hero-of-Time]

Just finished listening to the latest episode of NVC and people were right when they were saying it was one of the best episodes in a while in terms of flow and conversation. Zach actually adds to the conversation and i'd be happy to have him host for the long term if he continues to be this way.