In August of last year, the indie roguelike Dead Cells launched to rave reviews, with many publications, including Game Rant, hailing it as one of the best games of 2018. Unfortunately for Dead Cells developer Motion Twin, the launch of the game was somewhat overshadowed by a controversy regarding one of its glowing reviews, as it was revealed that then-IGN editor Filip Miucin actually plagiarized his review of the game from YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming.

When it was discovered that Miucin plagiarized his Dead Cells review, IGN conducted an internal investigation and ended up firing him. Not long after that, Miucin created a YouTube video where he tried to write off the similarities between his Dead Cells review and Boomstick's review as being mere coincidence.

The Internet continued to find more examples of Miucin plagiarizing his work from others, even in the YouTube videos he made before he started working at IGN. Miucin deleted his initial "apology" video after this and then more or less disappeared from the Internet, popping up once in a blue moon to upload a new gaming video without acknowledging the controversy.

Now, nearly a year after the IGN plagiarism debacle, and Miucin has finally uploaded a pair of apology videos where he owns his mistakes and specifically apologizes to those he stole from. In the first video, Miucin apologizes to Nintendo Life for plagiarizing their FIFA 18 Switch review, Nintendo Wire for plagiarizing their Fire Emblem Warriors preview, Engadget for plagiarizing their Metroid: Samus Returns review, and Polygon for plagiarizing their Bayonetta 2 preview.

In the second video, Miucin explains why he started plagiarizing. He says that his YouTube channel grew faster than he expected. "I really bit off more than I can chew," Micuin says in the video. "I wasn't always confident in my abilities as a writer. So I took from sources who I trusted and respected and I agreed with, and I tried to change them in a way that I would say it."

Miucin's insecurities worsened after he was hired at IGN. "The audience was bigger and the expectations were higher. I really wanted to do well, but I was also really scared about saying the wrong thing or putting out a bad review. [...] I should have been able to own up to myself that I just wasn't the right person for that job."

At the end of the second video, Miucin implies that he plans to keep producing content for his YouTube channel. However, it's unclear how the community will receive him. Both apology videos have just about as many dislikes as they do likes, so it seems as though Miucin has an uphill battle ahead of him. Hopefully if Miucin does continue to produce content for YouTube or elsewhere, he is truly able to leave his plagiarism past behind him.