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

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.