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The story a couple of weeks ago was that a writer for IGN was caught plagiarizing his content. On July 24, Boomstick Gaming reviewed the game Dead Cells. Then on August 6, IGN posted their own review, which was almost a point-for-point recreation of the Boomstick review with some different phrasing. Boomstick noticed this and posted a side-by-side comparison of the two videos:

IGN took down the review, investigated, and then fired the author after they concluded the reviews were far too similar to be the result of happenstance. The plagiarist then posted an apology to his personal YouTube channel that came off as a clumsy insincere deflection rather than as a true confession and apology. The apology got so much negative response that he’s since taken it downI didn’t see it before it vanished. I’m sure you can still find copies of it on YouTube if you’re willing to go hunting for them.. Once the story came to light, people looked at his back catalog of content and found that he seems to have plagiarized a lot of other content over the course of his short career. The Dead Cells review wasn’t his first act of plagiarism, it was just the first time he got caught.

This has gotten a lot of coverage, to the point where I’m kind of uncomfortable joining the dogpile. The plagiarist’s name and face have been broadcast all over the place for weeks now. His reputation is ruined and his career is over. Those are both appropriate responses to his actions, but after a certain threshold the whole thing starts to feel vindictive. It’s not that any one story went overboard. It’s just that the cumulative effect of so many articles has unintentionally elevated the response to extreme levels. It’s not like he killed somebody. Nobody was even really all that hurt. The main victim was IGN, who had to take down all of the plagiarists archived content and spend resources re-reviewing the affected games. That sucks and I don’t blame IGN for being upset, but I don’t feel any personal need to direct additional rage towards the guilty. He got caught. He got fired. Story over.

I want to use this story to talk about this style of “rephrasing plagiarism” in general, but I don’t want to add to the ongoing public shaming. So for this article I’m not going to use the name or face of the guilty. If you want to dig into that side of the story, other people have you covered.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “This Dumb Industry: Plagiarism”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

In my column this week I make the case that I see an opportunity where Microsoft could attempt to win over Japanese consumers. To be clear, I’m not suggesting Microsoft will do this. In fact, I’d bet heavily against it. Reaching out to the consumers Nintendo has abused and taken for granted would require pretty much the opposite of the corporate culture Microsoft has now.

The problem is that in Japan, Microsoft needs to act like a hungry young startup. When you’ve got single-digit market share, you need to be willing to take risks. When you’re on top you can be aloof and interact only via PR and press releases, but when you’re on the bottom you need to adopt an approachable and human company face. Talk directly to your (potential) customers, give stuff away for free, and make jokes at your own expenseThis is how you do it in the west. I have no idea if self-deprecation is really a good strategy in Japan. to show your self-awareness. You need to be able to present yourself as an alternative to the cold corporate entities that consumers are used to. I seriously doubt anyone in Redmond has the license to do that sort of thing.

Back in 1980, IBM was a bloated, bureaucratic machine. The joke was that it would take them nine months and five million dollars to ship an empty box. Their size and ultra-conservative company culture made them slow and risk-averse. Sensing that they were arriving late to the personal computing market, they did something radical. They created a small team and cut them off from the bureaucracy, effectively giving a small group of people leeway to design whatever they wanted. This enabled them to enter the market quickly and maneuver as if they were a small company. It worked pretty well for most of the 80s, until clones choked out their hardware and feisty youngblood Microsoft punted them out of the operating system market.

So here we are about 30 years later, and now Microsoft is the staggering behemoth that wants to enter a new market but lacks the dexterity to make it happen.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Experienced Points: Microsoft’s Chance in Japan”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.