South Korean publishers Nexon are investigating a recent bit of TikTok marketing for their free-to-play shooter The First Descendant, after players spotted some ads that feature AI-generated ‘human’ streamers bigging up the game. Well, we at least have to assume it’s following that, as Nexon’s statement omits mentioning AI in favour of the wonderfully nebulous phrase “certain irregularities”.
If you’ve not seen one of these ads that look to have been posted by The First Descendant’s official account, allow me to show you, because you’ll see right quick why folks have been asking questions. Boom. There are further booms compiled into one Reddit post by user iHardlyTriHard down below.
As you can see, them be some weird renderings of streamy blokes, especially the one who says Nier: Automata in a fashion that’d be hilarious if this wasn’t terrible AI sloppage. Seriously, he pronounces it NEER (pause for ten seconds) audomada. He also gets points for doubling up on his use of free-to-play in his attempt to get you hyped about an F2P update to the F2P looter shooter, which has launched F2Ply.
Anyway, in addition to the more obviously not-streamers, it appears the first one in the compilation below may be based on the likeness of streamer DanieltheDemon. He’s since taken to the comments section of a TikTok about the clips to make clear he didn’t agree to any of this. “I have no affiliation nor contract with The First Descendant,” the streamer wrote. “They stole my face/reactions from my most viral video and used AI to change what my mouth says and a voice that isn’t mine. I did not consent for my likeness to be used…”
While you can’t find these full ads if you go to The First Descendant’s official TikTok account, you can see some of the gameplay clips the AI streamers have been paired with to deliver their samey sales pitches.
What do Nexon have to say about this? The following:
We would like to inform you of certain irregularities identified in the operation of our TikTok Creative Challenge for creators. As a part of our marketing campaign for Season 3: Breakthrough, we recently ran a Creative Challenge program for TikTok creators, which allows creators to voluntarily submit their content to be used as advertising materials. All submitted videos are verified through TikTok’s system to check copyright violations before they are approved as advertising content.
However, we have become aware of cases where the circumstances surrounding the production of certain submitted videos appear inappropriate. Thus, we are conducting a thorough joint investigation with TikTok to determine the facts. We sincerely apologize for the delay in providing this notice as the review is taking longer than expected. Once the verification is complete, we will promptly share an update through an official notice.
So, the company ran a competition of sorts that let anyone create ads for the game, which is a strange example of outsourcing at the very least, then seemingly left final approval for publication to TikTok’s copyright checker, which merrily waved this dodgy stuff through. Either that or Nexon potentially gave it all the green light themselves. Either way, oof.
We’ll have to see what the company say once that investigation’s concluded, but here’s hoping the next statement’s a bit more like the easier-to-parse response offered when Nexon were accused of taking a bit too much inspiration from some Destiny 2 icons.