Plagiarism is a nasty word. But when someone is accused of it the reaction should be to check it out not bash the people who brought forward the accusation.

Over the weekend a controversy popped up surrounding 1Up's Dead or Alive 4 strategy guide and its similarities with a strategy guide put together by fan site DoA Central.

Some allege that 1Up's Richard Li lifted lots of material, just reordering or slightly rewording it, from DoA Central, while others argue that the similarities exist simply because both are dealing with a known set of facts. While getting to the bottom of the issue is of the utmost importance, the thing I found most disturbing was Che Chou's response to the allegation on the Gaming-Age Forums.

Okay, well.

I'm not exactly sure what our strategy guide writer Richard Li's methodology was when he wrote the DOA4 feature but I know for a fact that it wasn't straight "plagiarism." Maybe his research started at the fansite level (where he might have found a list of moves folks were discussing a lot), but I sat with him for a week and a half while he went through every character and tried to discover move properties and effectiveness in actual matches. And he took a ton of notes. And he also got pretty good at the game as a result.

Did he look at DOA Central? Probably. Did he straight lift VirtuaPai's strat? Fuck no.

As for the forumites on DOAC... their reaction to my DOA4 score is totally expected... isn't it?

In later posts Che goes on to question the veracity of the claim because it's coming from a "fansite."

I'm a little surprised by this reaction. First, just because the allegation comes from a particular place doesn't mean it should be looked into. Second, are you looking into it? Judging by that response, 1Up isn't and seems to think it's OK to lean on other people's research without giving credit. There's no such thing as a little bit of plagiarism.

I'm hoping that a formal review of the writer's work is under way, not because I believe or don't believe the claims, but because that's how you maintain a publication's integrity.

EGW/1Up Steals the Blood and Sweat of hardcore gamers? [GAF, thanks James]