After being accused of plagiarizing his IGN Dead Cells review and subsequently losing his job at the company, Filip Miucin fell silent. Until today. Miucin released a video on his personal YouTube channel disputing the plagiarism allegations while stating that he takes “complete ownership over what happened.” He also apologized to IGN and developer Motion Twin while pushing back on the people sending threats to him and his family.
“There were a lot of circumstances surrounding it but at the end of the day,” he stated near the top of the video. “I was the editorial lead on it so if anything, that makes it my responsibility.”
On his Twitter account, Miucin said that he edited the Dead Cells video review for IGN, but has since deleted the tweets. He then talked about his reviewing process and vaguely explained how the similarities were a coincidence.
“I do as much research as I can about it, whether it’s a game, a product, or an event,” he said. “I try to look at all resources that I have available to me before I start formulating my own critical opinions so I can offer the most cohesive possible review. The bottom line is that what happened with the Dead Cells review was not at all intentional.”
Miucin didn’t dwell too long on the exact details on why his review sounds incredibly similar to Boomstick Gaming’s review other than claiming that it was unintentional. He also then took the opportunity to defend his old FIFA 18 Switch review and the originality of his personal pre-IGN YouTube videos.
“Maybe [Jason Schreier from Kotaku] was implying that if you have similarly opinionated reviews then you’re just plagiarizing,” he said. “Or maybe he’s just maybe trying to get as many clicks off of my name right now as possible or maybe he just likes kicking people when they’re down. I don’t know. I mean, check it out for yourselves and you be the judge.”
Thanks to their readers, Kotaku pointed out some instances where Miucin’s review and NintendoLife’s FIFA 18 Switch review suspiciously line up. Like with Dead Cells, there more than a few instances where paragraphs share striking similarities.
These similarities are even more damning when considering that Miucin’s piece went up a few days after NintendoLife’s review and his reviewing method of reading other material beforehand. Regardless, it’s worth pointing out that reviewers can have parallel opinions and be fine, but expressing those points in an almost identical fashion is where it starts to creep into plagiarism territory. The issue wasn’t that he enjoyed Dead Cells like Boomstick Gaming; it was because he articulated his love for the game in an alarmingly similar way after Boomstick’s review had gone live.
This controversy has made Miucin the target of fair and unfair attention. Judging by his video and the responses to his now-deleted tweets, he and his relatives became targeted by trolls. Calling it “pretty staggering,” Miucin claimed that people have been going to his family’s social media accounts to spread hate and vitriol. He also then expressed his gratitude for his fans and how he will keep making videos to earn back their trust.
“I love what I do and I want to keep doing it,” he said during his closing statement. “I don’t want to stop making videos. I want to prove to you that I can be better… better than I ever was before.”
