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EGM/1UP steals the blood and sweat of hardcore gamers?

Fess

Member
Monk said:
Did the hardcore gamer write a disclaimer that he wanted to be credited when they get "borrowed"? If not, what is the problem? Initially the information was free to use as you wish .
Actually, the information was just as "free to use as you wish" as it would be in a text on 1UP, IGN, GameSpot etc. That's what I've heard anyway. You don't have to write that your work is copyrighted anymore, it's all copyrighted automatically with or without copyright notice.
 

Lost Fragment

Obsessed with 4chan
Damn, that's pretty blatant and wrong.

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing Ziff Davis bending to the powers of some random fansite and giving credit where credit is due unless it starts to hurt their image enough.
 

APF

Member
Does 1UP really need strategy guides in the first place? If I need a FAQ or movelist or guide or whatever my instinct is to go to GameFAQs, which specializes in that info. The one benefit a site like 1UP can provide is detailed pictures and video, but the pictures are small and undescriptive, and there's no video; even small/lightweight animated gifs would have added a lot of informational value. There's also a big disconnect between using the left-hand navigation and using the next/prev/page# navigation at the bottom, which is a frustratingly unnecessary and boneheaded usability decision. So why again am I compelled to use this guide rather than one of many at GameFAQs? or one at a site specializing in that particular game, which will have fresher, continuously-updated content and likely-expert support in their forums? If 1UP is a community-focused site, why not make the guides into wikis, have a writer/editor populate the guide with initial info, and then invite community members/game experts to update and revise that info?
 

Sapiens

Member
Those strategies were built into the game, what is the point of doing hard work twice if someone has already done it and posted it online. 1up did steal it, but who really cares?

Makes Shoe's rants about credebility seem laughable though...
 
There are only a few ways to write a fighting game strategy guide. :) I doubt he stole it.

I love DOA4, but I have to admit the fighting system is complete garbage. Almost every single hit is critical, it's lame.

SC2 (yes, 2) ftw.
 

Lost Fragment

Obsessed with 4chan
The point isn't that he used it, it's that he didn't give credit where credit's due after using it.

Makes Shoe's rants about credebility seem laughable though...

Eh...well one person's unethical practices don't really reflect the practices of the entire site, but it's gonna be hard for me to see their guides and not have this in the back of my mind. This doesn't look like the first time this shit has happened, either, but yeah, I doubt they're actually encouraged to do this. But if I was an executive at 1UP I'd drop the fucking hammer on it. It's ridiculous.
 

Sapiens

Member
Lost Fragment said:
Eh...well one person's unethical practices don't really reflect the practices of the entire site, .

I would argue that it does. This is on Gaf now, Che's probably talking about it with Shoe in the lunch room at Ziff. If Shoe or JD (or whoever is in charge of these situations) do not address it publically, and discipline the individual responsible, then it is as good as approving of it. The publication is a team effort, after all, and mistakes do represent the whole.


Then again, it is a videogame website/publication, so in the end, it is insignificant. I appreciate that shoe has his morals (and I agree with them), but if I were in his position, I would take some form of action. Better to resolve an obvious issue than let it remain out in the open like this.
 

Lost Fragment

Obsessed with 4chan
Sapienshomo said:
I would argue that it does. This is on Gaf now, Che's probably talking about it with Shoe in the lunch room at Ziff. If Shoe or JD (or whoever is in charge of these situations) do not address it publically, and discipline the individual responsible, then it is as good as approving of it. The publication is a team effort, after all, and mistakes do represent the whole.


Then again, it is a videogame website/publication, so in the end, it is insignificant. I appreciate that shoe has his morals (and I agree with them), but if I were in his position, I would take some form of action. Better to resolve an obvious issue than let it remain out in the open like this.

Heh, well I can't disagree with that. Good point.
 

Wario64

works for Gamestop (lol)
How about the time when EGM stole a pic of those people holding portraits of their dead loved ones from a war or whatever? Then Photoshopped so that they were holding boxes of SOCOM 2...
 

Sapiens

Member
Wario64 said:
How about the time when EGM stole a pic of those people holding portraits of their dead loved ones from a war or whatever? Then Photoshopped so that they were holding boxes of SOCOM 2...


Dan came out and appolgized for that but wow, that wasn't even in good taste in the first place - should never have happened. Even though I had no real problem with it - the 1 or 2 people that will write in to complain represent a large number who do, but aren't as active about it.

Like, I don't care about this DOA thing - because really, you put that shit out on the internet and Dan Shoe is going to fucking take it. He's crazy.
 
This thread made me sad for 1up. It's pretty clear from the evidence presented what went on. To be honest I doesn't matter to me what the material is that was reproduced, or even if it's happened before or whatever, just the fact that it happens. And I can't even begin to comprehend why people here are trying to play down the dishonesty. Poor show.
 

chespace

It's not actually trolling if you don't admit it
Joseph Merrick said:
This thread made me sad for 1up. It's pretty clear from the evidence presented what went on. To be honest I doesn't matter to me what the material is that was reproduced, or even if it's happened before or whatever, just the fact that it happens. And I can't even begin to comprehend why people here are trying to play down the dishonesty. Poor show.

I'm not trying to play it down, and considering that it's Sunday night, I haven't even talked to Richard yet. Still, I am presenting you with a set of facts to consider, which is, from my perspective, what I saw was Richard working very hard on a DOA4 guide by playing and getting to know every single character, and experimenting, sometimes with tiresome repetition, each character's best arsenal. Did he look at VirtuaPai's strategy? Probably. But does that mean he didn't put in the legwork to discover his own subtleties? No. If it was a straight copy, paste, and edit, he could have saved himself an awful lot of time.

I'll look into it tomorrow and if something is afoul, we'll do what we can to set things right. What more can I do right now? :)
 
chespace said:
I'm not trying to play it down
Yeah, I wasn't actually referring to you there.

Oh btw. I didn't read any of the DOA texts, or for that matter any of the thread on that other board either. Heh. Harsh.
 

Sapiens

Member
This whole thing is gay anyways. It would be like gamepro having a fit for Egm telling people how to do a fireball in sf2 a month after they did. There is so many ways to describe how to to a fireball in print.

What I'm trying to say is that EGM reads gamepro for all of their SF2 Strategies.
 

xsarien

daedsiluap
I'm not going to read each and every post on the DOA forum because, well, I'd sooner get a root canal than read about that game, let alone play it.

But going off of an example of the alleged plagiarism, I have to say that the level of histrionics around here against the BIG BAD CORPORATE MONSTER OF 1UP STEPPING ON THE LITTLE GUYS is largely uncalled for.

These are quick lists of commands, not word-for-word, paragraph-for-paragraph identical articles. That is plagiarism. Happening to list move commands in the same order as Some Dude? A very viable argument is "How many ways can you possibly list the same, static information?"

The ego on those forumites is pretty intense.
 

littlewig

Banned
xsarien said:
I'm not going to read each and every post on the DOA forum because, well, I'd sooner get a root canal than read about that game, let alone play it.

But going off of an example of the alleged plagiarism, I have to say that the level of histrionics around here against the BIG BAD CORPORATE MONSTER OF 1UP STEPPING ON THE LITTLE GUYS is largely uncalled for.

These are quick lists of commands, not word-for-word, paragraph-for-paragraph identical articles. That is plagiarism. Happening to list move commands in the same order as Some Dude? A very viable argument is "How many ways can you possibly list the same, static information?"

The ego on those forumites is pretty intense.

Sorry, if they got anything, anything at all from the site without citing them or giving them credit, it's plagiarism.

I should know, my friend got busted in college for writing a couple of paragraphs in a paper that only paraphrased from a textbook without citing it.
 
Screw the specifics. This is all about living by a code of honour. If someone ritual suicides during the next 1upshow ep then all this should be forgotten. It's karma on their respective heads.
 

Matlock

Banned
http://www.doacentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5963&highlight=except+low+mids
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3147164#d2.2

:lol There's a DEFINED pattern consistent in Li and Pai's articles--

Throughout Pai's strat, up takes precedent over down until Christie.

Moves that start with up come before ones that start with down. When two moves are identical until the buffer direction at the end, up moves also take precedent.

Christie and Bayman are the only two to miss that pattern, on both strats.
 

xsarien

daedsiluap
littlewig said:
I should know, my friend got busted in college for writing a couple of paragraphs in a paper that only paraphrased from a textbook without citing it.

Sorry, that doesn't make you an expert on plagiarism.
 

Sapiens

Member
Most obvious solution? Fire the guy that pretended to look busy when Che was around and hire this VirtuaPai person.
 

xsarien

daedsiluap
littlewig said:
Neither does thinking that plagiarism is just copying something word for word...

The definition of the word, classically, refers to the stealing of words or ideas and their ultimate presentation as originals by the offending party. But these are just move lists; it's tantamount to sports writers calling their collegues out because one or two might have listed some stats in the same order they did.
 

IJoel

Member
Matlock said:
http://www.doacentral.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5963&highlight=except+low+mids
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?pager.offset=1&cId=3147164#d2.2

:lol There's a DEFINED pattern consistent in Li and Pai's articles--

Throughout Pai's strat, up takes precedent over down until Christie.

Moves that start with up come before ones that start with down. When two moves are identical until the buffer direction at the end, up moves also take precedent.

Christie and Bayman are the only two to miss that pattern, on both strats.

Woah!

:lol
 

Anyanka

Member
xsarien said:
The definition of the word, classically, refers to the stealing of words or ideas and their ultimate presentation as originals by the offending party. But these are just move lists; it's tantamount to sports writers calling their collegues out because one or two might have listed some stats in the same order they did.


Which examples are you looking at? It's not just a list of moves. Look at this.


Evasion in Doa4 is overall different than it was in previous doa games. Doa2 introduced free stepping, while doa3, and Doa3.1 made it possible to free step dodge. Doa3.2 and Doa4 no longer allow players to FSD a vast majority of single strikes. Now players can only evade Jumping and lunging attacks with ease. This force players to learn each characters specific evasive maneuvers, instead of relying on a homogenous system.

The current Evasion System underwent some drastic changes, forcing players to rely on character specific evasive maneuvers instead of freely side-stepping out of danger. Whereas DoA3 allowed the possibility to free step dodge (FSD) around the environments, DoA4 is extremely difficult to FSD the majority of single attacks. Now, players are limited to jumping and lunging moves to evade single blows, causing much more reliance to a character's specific evade attacks.



They then rank the characters evasive moves into tiers almost identically.
 

Lost Fragment

Obsessed with 4chan
It's not just a simple command list. Look at the the paragraph on evasion.

Wow, I didn't notice that :lol

I know that sometimes there just aren't a lot of different ways to say some things, so there was a little of me that thought that might've been what happened, but there isn't a lot of excuses I can think of for the structure similarity in that.
 

Monk

Banned
Uh, geez, i looked a couple of examples. It looks like he found the guide checked it for himself and wrote in down in his own words. That isnt plagarism. It isnt even copy and paste with a few words moved around.

But a reference should have been cited though as links to "additional information" imo.


EDIT: *sees paragraph on evasion* Takes back what he said. Fire his ass.
 

demi

Member
Jeez if this isn't plagarism then I'm going to start a review website and just go borrow some of 1UPs reviews!

Thanks Che!
 

Monk

Banned
plagiarism

n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own [syn: plagiarization, plagiarisation, piracy]

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

But the point is moot, he didnt even do what i said he did.
 

xsarien

daedsiluap
demi said:
Jeez if this isn't plagarism then I'm going to start a review website and just go borrow some of 1UPs reviews!

Thanks Che!

Now that's just plain old copyright infringement.
 

demi

Member
Dude no way, I totally just like, totally glanced at the review.

But just for like, a minute.

I swear it's my review. Really.
 
I didn't read any of the DOA texts, or for that matter any of the thread on that other board either. Heh. Harsh.

Outside of command lists, it's hard to find anything pertaining to DOA that doesn't read as follows. . .

Lisa continued to look at her friend as she walked around the
store. She couldn't help but let her eyes wander over Tina's body. Her
beauty, her muscles, her grace. I need to let her know how I feel about
her, Lisa thought. But when? How?

:lol :lol :lol

Man, they really changed Ivy's move set in SC3. @_@
 

Aruarian Reflection

Chauffeur de la gdlk
I would be very interested to see what, if any, repercussions there are as a result of this. It's really shameful, I hope 1up does the right thing and owns up to it.
 

Blazyr

Member
Despite the respect you all typically accord Che, it seems no one is paying an ounce of attention to him here. Whatever conspiracy theory you may wish to indulge in, the simple fact is that Richard sat there hammering away at this game for hours. Having seen that with my own eyes I take that as much more compelling "evidence" than similarities between forum posts and the guide.

And anyway, how much differentiation could there be in fighting game guides? It's not like the characters learn new ways to play based on your actions. Their moves are what they are, as are the systems they operate in.

It's pretty presumptuous of some here to call out Richard based on the accusations of a fansite.
 

Monk

Banned
Blazyr said:
Despite the respect you all typically accord Che, it seems no one is paying an ounce of attention to him here. Whatever conspiracy theory you may wish to indulge in, the simple fact is that Richard sat there hammering away at this game for hours. Having seen that with my own eyes I take that as much more compelling "evidence" than similarities between forum posts and the guide.

And anyway, how much differentiation could there be in fighting game guides? It's not like the characters learn new ways to play based on your actions. Their moves are what they are, as are the systems they operate in.

It's pretty presumptuous of some here to call out Richard based on the accusations of a fansite.


It isnt a matter of him trying the things out, it is the fact that he literally took words from the other site an claimed it as his own. That is definite plagarism.
 
It's pretty presumptuous of some here to call out Richard based on the accusations of a fansite.

Dick . . . You're fired!

robocopdickjones30ix.jpg
 

Anyanka

Member
What does the amount of time he spent on the game have to do with anything? Even if only part of it is copied or he tested it himself it's still not right.

"similarities"? That's an understatement. Look at the paragraph describing evasion in DOA 4. Followed by the exact same tiering and comments. Come on.
 
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