I was sent a link to a rather disturbing thread created in the NeoGAF forums today. The subject line is “GamePro PLAIGARIZES IGN's review of Water Warfare (Wii).” Here is a link if you want to read the discussion. As you can imagine, the editors of GamePro and GamePro Arcade took these charges very seriously and we immediately began to investigate. Both Terry, the editor in chief of GamePro Arcade, and I read over both reviews and contacted the writer in question, Andrew Ramsey to get his side of the story. Unfortunately, Terry is on vacation, so I am taking over for him to respond to this issue.
After speaking to Andrew, I must regretfully report that the charges are true. While Andrew did not intentionally and maliciously try to plagarize IGN UK’s review of Water Warfare for the WiiWare service, he did admit to using it as a reference point and certain segments of the IGN UK review were used. This is a serious breach of journalistic ethics and after conferring with Terry, we have made the decision to relieve Andrew of his position as contributing writer for GamePro Arcade.
We have also made the decision to leave the review in place but we will add a very visible note at the top explaining what happened and why. We chose to do this because we did not want to hide or obscure what had occurred. We wanted to be up front about the mistake that had been made and take full responsibility for it. The score will be stripped out however and we will work to ensure that it is not counted in any shape or form in terms of score aggregation.
I also want to take this opportunity to clear up any confusion about the relationship between GamePro and GamePro Arcade. GamePro Arcade is an affiliate that resides in a larger network of sites; it covers downloadable content such as XBL, PSN and WiiWare games as well as DLC content. The site is independantly run by a main editor, in this case Terry; I act as the main liason between Terry and GamePro. The site maintains full autonomy but we do have a close working relationship. We sometimes share content between the two sites where appropriate and the editors of GamePro will provide assistance contacting PR reps for information and the like. I would also like to point out that Andrew was not a paid employee of GamePro or GamePro Arcade; he was an unpaid contributor who worked mainly for the experience, though he has received some games and other items when they were available. I mention this because several members of the NeoGAF forums expressed confusion as to whether or not Andrew was a GamePro employee.
In the end, Terry and I regret that this entire ordeal happened. We strive very hard to maintain journalistic integrity across our entire network and this is a very serious and unfortunate occurance. We apologize to our readers, to our collegues at IGN UK and the developers of Water Warfare and we promise that we will strive to ensure that this mistake is never repeated again.
If you have any thoughts or questions on the matter, please feel free to contact me directly at tkim@gamepro.com. Thank you.
