Fighting fans from DoA Central are up in arms about a 1UP strategy guide for Dead or Alive 4 that contains a section highly reminiscent of a guide currently up on the fan site. Accusations of plagiarism abound. We've contacted the Ziff Davis folks about this and await an official response after the start of the new work week. It is yet to be seen whether the evidence cited will hold water with the managing staff, but we can't wait for a response from EGM Editor-in-Chief Dan Hsu.
Some posts tracking the so-called plagiarism in more detail have been made on the linked Gaming Age Forum thread as well (which is understandable, considering similar phrasings, move-list orders, character tiers, and alleged errors in the portions not supposedly pilfered). Others, however, chalk up the similarities to the fact that strategy guides can only be written in a certain number of ways, and that guide writers can discover their own "subtleties" without resorting to an easy rephrasing or flat-out copy-and-paste job.
What is interesting in light of this controversy is the discussion of DoA4's merits (and demerits) involving 1UP Executive Editor Che Chou and 1UP Cheats Editor Richard Li on the episode of the 1UP Show from 01/20/2006. Could the guide's writer, Mr. Li, who called the game "Jiggle Fighter 2006," really master its intricacies (button-mashing and all) and write a detail guide with advanced strategies in under two weeks? And not to implicate Mr. Chou in this mess, but he states that his review score in the next issue of EGM will be merely a 6.5 out of 10 (the metascore from metacritic's currently 89 out of 100), despite claiming around the 6:15 mark: "...this game sucks so bad, and it's so fun; I don't know why I keep playing it" (whether said in jest or not). Take that as you will, folks.
[Thanks, Patrick]
