Looter-shooter\u00a0The First Descendant came under fire over the weekend for some TikTok ads featuring incredibly terrible AI fakes of real streamers endorsing the game. But as grimly bad as the ads might be, publisher Nexon\u2019s excuses are somehow even worse.<\/p>\n
The First Descendant is a free-to-play shooter that\u2019s been around since June, 2024, entirely failing to set the world ablaze ever since. About as 6\/10 as a game can be, it\u2019s continued chugging along, mostly without much attention, that is until a bunch of TikTok ads appeared over the weekend that contained some excruciatingly obvious AI bullshit. Uncomfortable AI voices don\u2019t quite match the clumsy lip-syncing of nearly human streamers, as they passionately endorse the middling looter-shooter with streams of superlatives. Worse, at least one of the videos contains the likeness of a real streamer, who clearly wasn\u2019t choosing to endorse the game. Reddit user iHardlyTriHard compiled the ads into one video:<\/p>\n
OK, so they\u2019re laughably bad, while simultaneously chillingly close to good. It\u2019s hard to watch these and not only think about where this tech will be in a couple of years, how all the obvious signs of fakery will likely be ironed out with the rapid improvements arriving from the competing tech companies. But given just how bad they are, the other question is: how? How on Earth did these come to be released as approved commercials for\u00a0The First Descendant, and why did developer\/publisher Nexon Games ever think they\u2019d get away with it? It\u2019s so much stupider than you could guess.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would like to inform you of certain irregularities identified in the operation of our TikTok Creative Challenge for creators,\u201d said Nexon on X<\/a> this morning, August 18. \u201cAs a part of our marketing campaign for Season 3: Breakthrough, we recently ran a\u00a0Creative Challenge<\/a> program for TikTok creators, which allows creators to voluntarily submit their content to be used as advertising materials.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s already amazing. The company ran a competition where the prize was you got to make a commercial for a game. That link, by the way, goes to a generic post about TikTok\u2019s so-called \u201ccreative\u201d challenge from 2023, seemingly nothing to do with this incident.<\/p>\n \u201cAll submitted videos are verified through TikTok\u2019s system to check copyright violations before they are approved as advertising content,\u201d the post continues, ensuring blame is already being distributed elsewhere. \u201cHowever, 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.\u201d<\/p>\n The post concludes, \u201cWe 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. Thank you for your patience and understanding.\u201d These final remarks appear to be in reference to the game\u2019s community accusing the official TikTok page for TFD of deleting and reuploading the AI ads once they received too much negative feedback, while surely aware of the issue.<\/p>\n The statement, while obviously trying to lay some blame for the situation at TikTok\u2019s feet by suggesting it was a failure of the app\u2019s verification for \u201ccopyright violations\u201d (a mystifying suggestion), doesn\u2019t explain how such obviously AI-faked content was ever distributed as official advertising for the game. It seems to leave two possible scenarios:<\/p>\n 1) The AI ads were screened and approved by Nexon, and released as advertising materials, despite so obviously being fraudulent AI.<\/p>\n 2) Nexon didn\u2019t screen the ads promoting its game at all before releasing them, leaving it all to TikTok.<\/p>\n Neither is a good scenario for Nexon, at all.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve contacted the company to ask what happened, and why, and will update should we receive a response.<\/p>\n