Filip Miucin is a douche.

The man is a lying, thieving douche who managed to get ahead in life for a long time by doing something that any writer or journalist, video game or otherwise, shouldn’t do. Filip Miucin is a douche because he copied other peoples’ hard earn work and made it seem as if it was his own. Filip Miucin is a plagiarist and has been lifting other video game reviews and written words done by other people and claiming it as he did all of it. The sad thing is he get away with it for such a long time and even managed to parlay that into getting a job at IGN.

Unfortunately for him, he got caught red handed plagiarizing one too many things. When one of the most anticipated indy games on various consoles, which included the Nintendo Switch. YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming, a rather small production and fairly unknown channel (at the time), released a review of Dead Cells on the 24th of July. On the 4th of August, Filip Miucin, who was hired by IGN to be their Nintendo division editor, released a review of the same game. Boomstick Gaming watched the video and noticed something really suspicious regarding IGN’s review…

If you watched Boomstick Gaming’s comparison review between his and IGN’s version, you can definitely see some definite similarities between them. No, I’m sorry. Saying there are “similarities” is too weak of a word because Filip pretty much lifted Boomstick Gaming’s review and just shifted or changed a few words here and there. This, boys and girls, is plagiarism. And this is probably the greatest sin any journalist can commit.

Since then, a lot has happened. IGN fired Filip Miucin and IGN had to practically remove all of the guy’s work from the site for review as more and more evidence were dug up about his plagiarism ways. Filip then released an “apology” video on his own YouTube channel, which didn’t go over very well. While he apologized to IGN and the folks who made Dead Cells, he did not apologize to Boomstick Gaming. To make matters worse, he challenged the people over at Kotaku, who broke the story, to find more instances of his alleged plagiarism. Kotaku didn’t have to since dozens and dozens of Internet netizens sent them various instances where Filip Miucin copied other peoples’ work. I believe there is no way for Filip Miucin can build the trust as a legitimate video game journalist anymore because of this.

This leads me to the question: what the heck was he thinking when he made the intentional choice to duplicating Boomstick Gaming’s video review of Dead Cells? The simple answer would be is he didn’t think he would get caught. But why? Well, to answer that, as a blogger who does write a lot and has been tempted by plagiarism in the past, I think I can delve into the mindset of the man in question and why he thought he was untouchable.

Now, before the entire brouhaha erupted, Filip was actually a modestly successful personality on YouTube. I didn’t know about him before the scandal but he was apparently pulling in a good number of views for his videos. His YouTube channel, which is still active by the way, and I will admit he does have some good video editing skills. He also has a good speaking voice. The only problem is his writing, I would assume, sucks. So, imagine that you’re starting out your YouTube channel and you believe you have the video editing skills and a clear way of articulating but you suck at writing, what are you to do? Well, I would personally want to find ways to gain more experience with putting scripts together but that’s not what Filip did. He just decided to do what we did when he was in high school when he put together a book report in the last minute and just plagiarize someone else’s work. And plagiarize he did!

Slowly but surely, his channel grew. Like I said, he’s good at putting videos together to make them visually interesting. He also has the guts to put himself in them as well. He also either got really lucky that he decided to shift his focus on the rising popularity of the Nintendo Switch or that he noticed the trend early on and purposefully made the switch to the Switch. Either way, this probably helped boost his viewership as well. Soon, he was ready to move on up, so to speak.

When there was an opening at IGN for a new Nintendo editor, Filip, being the enterprising fellow that he is, sent in his application. Say what you will about IGN, it’s still one of the premiere dedicated video game websites out there and it would be a dream for most gamers, including myself, to actually work for the publication. Thanks to his fair level of charisma, good video editing work and his ill-gotten ability to “write” interestingly, I can see why IGN hired Filip.

By this time, if I were Filip, I would definitely feel emboldened by this. I mean, imagine if you were him; you get a job, possibly your dream job, at one of the largest video game websites by basically cheating and didn’t get caught, despite having been doing so for the longest time. Wouldn’t you feel a little cocky? I know I would! But even while at IGN, Filip continued his ways, even being so bold as to plagiarize the work of fellow IGN writers, which is a really crappy thing to do, by the way! Then came the time when IGN gave him the opportunity to put up a review and make also a video review for Dead Cells. Unfortunately, Filip, despite being surrounded by dedicated journalists during his tenure at IGN, didn’t learn a lick about how to write in a creative manner. So, when he needed to review, he probably followed his old practice and ripping off someone else’s work.

But who should he copy? Well, there was a review embargo for the Nintendo Switch version of Dead Cells but the PC version was fair game. Filip probably “researched” for a positive review and came across Boomstick Gaming’s review of the PC version of Dead Cells. He watched it and he agreed with everything that was said and “wrote” his version of it, altering a few words here and there. Who’s going to know? After all, he’s gotten away with it for so long, there’s no way he’ll get caught now, right?

The problem is Filip forgot that he was working for IGN now. He wasn’t some lowly YouTuber anymore that only got a thousand or two views for each video. He was a part of IGN now and they can get possibly thousands of views per video in just a couple of days! One of these viewers was, coincidentally, Boomstick Gaming who quickly noticed that IGN/Filip’s review sounded suspiciously like his own. From the cadence, phrasing and even a lot of the words, they were the same review! Eventually, IGN was made aware of this and, to their credit, canned Filip immediately once this was proven.

Now, Filip is desperate. He needed to salvage his reputation or, at the very lease, have some shred of credibility after all of this. In true plagiarist style, Filip did what any plagiarist would do: deny that it was intentional. He returned to his YouTube channel and put out the disastrous “apology” video in the hopes to garner the sympathy of the public. And, like any desperate but really stupid man would do, put out the challenge to Kotaku, the site that broke the story to the public, to find other instances of copying. While it may seem foolish to issue the challenge, especially after plagiarizing so many times in the past, I think Filip never thought his past acts would ever come to light since he was doing it for so long without getting caught before.

Not only did Kotaku find a couple of other possible instances, the Internet also took up the challenge and found dozens upon dozens of instances when Filip copied other peoples’ work. The “apology” video has since been taken down and, well, I don’t think we’ll be hearing from him for a long, long time. His credibility as a journalist has been destroyed and trusting what he says from now on will be difficult, to say the least.

Now, while I in no way am defending Filip Miucin because, like I said, plagiarism in the most despicable thing any journalist can do, I can understand what he did as a person. I understand the temptation to profit from other people’s works. But you simply avoid it because, while your writing ability is a big factor of being a journalist, your credibility is really needed to make it big.

And that’s the problem. Filip Miucin is a person that wanted to be something he wasn’t: a video game journalist. He was a gamer that couldn’t write nor have the honesty to own up to his mistakes. He didn’t have the chops as a writer so he stole what other people wrote and put it out as if he wrote it and he managed to become a success in the gaming world, which ultimately was probably his goal. I mean, what video gamer wouldn’t want to be paid to play games? The problem is Filip Miucin went all about it the wrong way. He could’ve tried to learn how to write and slowly built up the skill but he wanted to make it big quickly and he got burned. It’s his fault and crying that he’s the victim means he hasn’t learned anything at all.

In closing, Filip Miucin is a douche.

What’s your take on the entire Filip Miucin situation? Let me know in the comments section below!