Nexon's The First Descendant Faces Backlash Over AI-Generated Influencer Ads on TikTok

Video game caught using AI-generated influencers in TikTok ads

Credit: Mashable edit: Screenshots from @firstdescendantofficial TikToks, via u/iHardlyTriHard Free-to-play game The First Descendant has been slammed for apparently using fake AI-generated influencers in their TikTok ads, as well as a deepfake of at least one real streamer without their knowledge or consent. The developer has now claimed this was the result of "certain irregularities" found in the operation of its call out for user-created content. Released by MapleStory developer Nexon last year, The First Descendant is a third-person loot shooter in which players fight alien invaders. Like many other online multiplayer games such as Fortnite and League of Legends, The First Descendant has "seasons," periods lasting a few months in which new content is added to the game. Season 3: Breakthrough began in August, with Nexon reportedly posting videos to The First Descendant's official TikTok account to promote the event. However, players soon noticed something off about these ads. While the TikTok videos appeared to feature clips of streamers promoting The First Descendant, several factors indicated that they had actually been generated using AI. Red flags included the ostensible streamers' artificial-sounding voices, their inauthentic scripts, and their strange mouth and head movements. While viewers may not immediately pick up on these tells while casually scrolling through their TikTok feed, it quickly becomes obvious once you pay more attention to the clips. Reddit user u/iHardlyTriHard compiled several of the ads in a post to the r/TheFirstDescendant subreddit, claiming that their TikTok For You page showed them four of the videos within 15 minutes. "It's really a kick in the teeth to TFD content creators for them to be using AI for ads like this instead of actual content creators," wrote u/iHardlyTriHard, who claimed to be a content creator themself. Even more egregious was the fact that at least one of The First Descendant's TikTok ads appeared to use the likeness of a real content creator without his consent. In the first clip from u/iHardlyTriHard's compilation, an apparent deepfake of horror game streamer DanieltheDemon can be seen talking about playing The First Descendant and promoting the game. However, DanieltheDemon has since stated that he had nothing to do with the game or ad. "I have no affiliation nor contract with The First Descendant," DanieltheDemon wrote, commenting under Game Central's TikTok video on the issue. "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..." With 8.3 million views, DanieltheDemon's most popular TikTok video shows the streamer playing indie horror game The Guest. The First Descendants' ad appears to have taken DanieltheDemon's video, flipped it, used AI to change his mouth movements and words, then added footage of their entirely different game to make it seem as though he was promoting it. "Honestly it's embarrassing I genuinely believe the ads will actually hurt the game because anyone who was maybe half interested in checking it out would see these and think not a fucking chance," Reddit user u/darknessinzero777 said of the fiasco. "I have no idea how I can recommend this game to other people at this point without also completely ruining my own credibility in the process," commented u/Detpowell. On Monday, Nexon released a statement addressing the uproar. While it did not directly address DanieltheDemon's specific situation, the developer did explain that it had not created the controversial ads itself. Rather, the videos had been created and submitted to them by third parties. "As a part of our marketing campaign for [The First Descendant] 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," Nexon wrote in its announcement. "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." TikTok's Creative Challenge program enables brands to issue call outs for user-created ads. Users who have been approved by TikTok to be part of this program can then create videos following the brand's guidelines, and will earn commissions on their content if their ad is used. Unfortunately, it seems that TikTok's vetting process may need reworking. Even so, not all the blame can be laid at TikTok's feet. Judging from Nexon's statement, it appears the developer either completely abdicated ad vetting to TikTok, or simply failed to catch the AI-generated content in its own checks. Neither option bodes well. Particularly considering that The First Descendant ads' AI use seems fairly obvious, increased scrutiny in Nexon's ad approval process wouldn't go amiss. Nexon states that its review of the situation is taking longer than expected, and it will provide further updates in due course. In any case, the developer will likely be more careful about approving crowdsourced ads in the future.

The First Descendant is using bizarre AI ads, at least one of which appears to be a clone of a real content creator

The First Descendant developer/publisher Nexon has been accused of using a series of "embarrassing" AI-generated TikTok advertisements, at least one of which is alleged to have imitated a real content creator. As collated by u/iHardlyTriHard on Reddit by scrolling on their For You Page for just 15 minutes, they came across four ads, along with another two "low effort ads that aren't specifically AI". As the OP points out, the issue isn't the use of generative AI in and of itself, but the fact that at least one ad uses the likeness of DanieltheDemon - and we don't yet know if it was with their consent or not. The AI ads are worse than you think byu/iHardlyTriHard inTheFirstDescendant "It's really a kick in the teeth to TFD content creators for them to be using AI for ads like this instead of actual content creators, especially since Nexon Creators has over 8.8k people signed up to it," the post author explained. "If I saw these ads before playing the game, I'd assume the game was 1) fake, 2) some sort of scam, virus, or phishing attempt," said one player. Some players report that the team behind The First Descendant's TikTok account are "deleting comments" from people who call the ads out, and "they delete and re-upload the AI ads whenever they get too much backlash in the comments". At the time of writing, Nexon has not publicly commented on feedback from players about the advertisements. Eurogamer has reached out for comment and will confirm if/when we hear back. At the end of July, players similiarly hit out at The Alters developer 11 Bit Studios after AI prompts were discovered in both subtitles and flavour text in the game, intimating routine use of large language models (LLMs) without disclosure. 11 Bit Studios later insisted the controversial elements discovered by players were either "temporary" assets "never intended to be part of the final release" or used in a "very limited manner".

The First Descendant is using AI ads with weird digital clones of actual streamers

If you've scrolled past an ad on TikTok for Nexon's gooner-looter-shooter The First Descendant you might not have noticed it was made by AI. But if you watch one of them for more than a second, you'll probably figure it out. Each one features an AI streamer rambling about the new boss Wall Crasher and maybe the Nier: Automata crossover while doing an odd headbob that I assume is supposed to make their rubber faces look more excited and emphatic. (The way one of them pronounces "Automata" sounds ridiculous, but has probably been trained on real people struggling to say it.) Instead of hiring proper influencers, these ads have AI imitations of actual streamers like DanieltheDemon pretending to be as excited about The First Descendant as he is about Warframe. It's not a subtle similarity either, but clearly an AI that's been trained on an actual person. Because ads on TikTok are unlisted, you won't see these on Nexon's official channel, but they have continued being shown to users even after a backlash began on the official subreddit. We've seen high-end fashion magazines resort to using an AI-generated model because apparently it's too much hassle to find an attractive blonde woman somewhere in the world of modeling, but this feels like a real low. There are plenty of regular streamers out there you could hire to cut a promo for your mid-tier shlooter. This seems more like the thing you create because management has paid for a bunch of AI tools after reading how essential they are on LinkedIn and keeps insisting you find a use for them.

Game publisher caught using AI-generated influencers in ads says they were submitted by TikTok users, will investigate 'irregularities' with the social media app

A series of promos for The First Descendant features influencers taking up the game's new season -- but they're not real. Nexon says it has discovered "certain irregularities" in a recent ad campaign for its gooner-looter-shooter The First Descendant, and is now "we are conducting a thorough joint investigation with TikTok to determine the facts." A quick refresher course: It came to light over the weekend that a recent series of ads for The First Descendant, in which anonymous streamers blabbered about the game's new season above clips of gameplay, did not feature real streamers at all but rather AI-generated people. At a quick glance the videos aren't obviously off, but the more you watch, the worse they become. The AI ads are worse than you think from r/TheFirstDescendant The first video in the clip above is pretty obviously based on a real streamer, DanieltheDemon -- who, for the record, said in a TikTok comment that he had nothing to do with it -- while the remainders are apparently fully AI generated. And to my eye, each is worse than the last: The dead-eyed digital dude that concludes the collage looks like the last thing you see after waking up at 4 am to discover that the government's Assassibot 6000 has made it past your home security system. Anyway, Nexon has now released a statement on the whole mess, and while facts are still being figured out and all that, it seems pretty eager to point the finger of blame at TikTok. "We would like to inform you of certain irregularities identified in the operation of our TikTok Creative Challenge for creators," Nexon wrote on X. "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." The Creative Challenge "is an official creator monetization program that turns your creativity into cash by creating UGC-style ads for your favorite brands.You can earn commission from the revenue generated by your videos and you'll never be asked to post anything to your own account," according to the page linked in the post. How exactly it works isn't clear -- I've reached out to Nexon to ask -- but it sounds like a TikTok-administered program: Certified creators "select and join challenges published by popular brands," make and upload videos "following brand requirements," and then $$$. The immediate question about this seems to be whether Nexon signed off on these clips before they started to run, or if it was entirely hands-off and trusted TikTok to ensure that nothing embarrassing or stupid would happen. Neither scenario is great, really, but the truth is I expect we'll see more of this sort of thing in the future, especially as AI-generated content continues to improve and becomes increasingly hard to detect. This particular situation may also be an even bigger mess than it initially appeared: Nexon apologized for the delay in releasing its statement but said "the review is taking longer than expected." That's rarely good news.

Nexon under fire for using AI generated streamers to promote The First Descendant

TL;DR: Nexon's free-to-play looter-shooter The First Descendant recently launched AI-generated digital clone ads, mimicking real streamers with unnatural speech and expressions. This controversial marketing approach sparked community backlash for its inauthenticity and ethical concerns, highlighting risks of using AI influencers over real creators in game promotion. If you've been scrolling through TikTok recently and have come across an ad for Nexon's free-to-play looter-shooter The First Descendant, which has just received another content update, you might have noticed something a little strange. The streamers or influencers advertising the game's latest content look and sound weird because they're AI-generated digital clones, with some modeled after real-world creators. From the mouth movements to weird pronunciation of words to fake excitement over The First Descendant's updated combat and new zone to explore, this is one of those examples of AI-generated content that looks immediately off because it aims to create realistically looking humans that can believably emote. And yes, as soon as people started spotting these ads (check out the cringe-inducing compilation above for a taste), the community backlash has made its way to the The First Descendant subreddit. "Embarrassing" and "it looks like a scam" are just the beginning. The biggest complaint is the most obvious one. For a live service game, a shooter that has an audience and creators that cover the game (or have covered it in the past), using fake AI digital humans pretending to be gamers and streamers instead of real people is questionable. Not only that, but one of the cringy digital humans used for one of the ads looks to be modeled or trained to look and sound exactly like real-world creator DanieltheDemon. Although the videos are unlisted and not tied to Nexon or The First Descendant's official social media accounts, this raises the very real prospect that game developers and publishers will be leveraging AI tools and digital humans to promote titles as opposed to spending money on the real thing. And when the result is, well, not as bad as this, it might even go unnoticed.

The First Descendant's Awful AI TikTok Ads Somehow Aren't As Bad As The Excuses

Publisher Nexon appears to be trying to lay the blame with TikTok Looter-shooter The 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's excuses are somehow even worse. The First Descendant is a free-to-play shooter that's been around since June, 2024, entirely failing to set the world ablaze ever since. About as 6/10 as a game can be, it's 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't 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't choosing to endorse the game. Reddit user iHardlyTriHard compiled the ads into one video: OK, so they're laughably bad, while simultaneously chillingly close to good. It's 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 The First Descendant, and why did developer/publisher Nexon Games ever think they'd get away with it? It's so much stupider than you could guess. "We would like to inform you of certain irregularities identified in the operation of our TikTok Creative Challenge for creators," said Nexon on X this morning, August 18. "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." It's 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's so-called "creative" challenge from 2023, seemingly nothing to do with this incident. The statement, while obviously trying to lay some blame for the situation at TikTok's feet by suggesting it was a failure of the app's verification for "copyright violations" (a mystifying suggestion), doesn't explain how such obviously AI-faked content was ever distributed as official advertising for the game. It seems to leave two possible scenarios: 1) The AI ads were screened and approved by Nexon, and released as advertising materials, despite so obviously being fraudulent AI. 2) Nexon didn't screen the ads promoting its game at all before releasing them, leaving it all to TikTok. Neither is a good scenario for Nexon, at all. We've contacted the company to ask what happened, and why, and will update should we receive a response.

The First Descendant's under fire for using uncanny AI ads claiming it's "the world's most popular shooter RPG," and at least one of them seems to imitate an actual streamer

Nier Automata's 2B isn't the only artificial intelligence now associated with looter shooter The First Descendant, which is being accused of advertising the game via AI-generated ads mimicking real people. Redditor iHardlyTriHard compiled four of these seemingly AI-generated TikTok clips that they say took them 15 minutes of scrolling to find, along with two others that appear to only use AI voice over. Most of the tell-tale signs are very obvious, too, like the wonky lip sync and uncanny voices. "It's really a kick in the teeth to [The First Descendant] content creators for them to be using AI for ads like this instead of actual content creators, especially since Nexon Creators has over 8.8k people signed up to it," the post added. I'll let you decide the ethics of promoting a game using the glowing praise of literally fake people that declare The First Descendant is "one of the world's most popular shooter RPGs," but the game's also been under fire because one of the clips seemingly clones content creator DanieltheDemon. It's unclear if he was involved with the ads in any way, though. (Good spot, Eurogamer.) "Honestly it's embarrassing," another Reddit comment reads."I genuinely believe they ads will actually hurt the game because anyone who was maybe half interested in checking it out would see these and think not a f**king chance." The First Descendant's no stranger to controversy, though. At launch, the game had to remove a bunch of icons that it was accused of ripping off from Destiny 2 after lots of backlash.

The First Descendant Dev Responds to AI TikTok Advert Backlash - IGN

Nexon has acknowledged "irregularities" in a series of TikTok advertisements for The First Descendant after fans accused the company of producing the "low effort" marketing materials via AI. It follows breaking news over the weekend in which Reddit user iHardlyTriHard collated four unusual advertisements after scrolling their For You Page for just 15 minutes. With all four exhibiting mismatched lip syncing, strange head movements, unnatural dialogue, and at least one that appears to use the likeness of content creator DanieltheDemon -- although whether this was with or without permission, we don't yet know -- fans immediately began speculating that they'd been produced via AI. Nexon was quick to respond, although the developer's statement spawns as many questions as it answers. It said the ads came from a TikTok Creative Challenge for creators, "which allows creators to voluntarily submit their content to be used as advertising materials." And while "all submitted videos are verified through TikTok's system to check copyright violations before they are approved as advertising content," it has since identified "cases where the circumstances surrounding the production of certain submitted videos appear inappropriate" and launched an investigation. Interestingly, the statement doesn't apologize -- the only time an apology appears, it's due to the "delay in providing this notice" about the investigation, as it's "taking longer than expected." Nexon said that once "verification is complete," it will share an update "through an official notice." Here's the statement in full: 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.Thank you for your patience and understanding. Nexon is just the latest company to come under fire for generative AI usage. In June, The Alters developer 11 Bit Studios promised an update to both to replace the AI-generated content with handcrafted assets after fans discovered AI prompts in the game that had not been properly disclosed. Jurassic World Evolution 3 developer Frontier Developments similarly had to walk back its use of generative AI characters portraits after widespread criticism, and Activision has been skewered repeatedly for its generative AI use, including recent examples of an ad for a Guitar Hero game that doesn't exist, and some Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 assets.