Recently, Nexon, the studio behind The First Descendant, launched an advertising campaign on TikTok, inviting users to create and submit content to promote the game. However, it soon became clear that many videos appearing on the official The First Descendant TikTok account were entirely generated by artificial intelligence. Furthermore, these AI-created videos featured the likenesses of well-known content creators who had not given their permission for such use. In response, Nexon issued an official apology on Steam.
In their Steam statement, Nexon offered a “sincere apology for the inconvenience and disappointment caused by the recent issue with the TikTok Creative Challenge.” The company also noted that TikTok had confirmed the platform currently lacks a system to “verify potential copyright infringement,” and is now conducting its own investigation to identify other similar instances. Nexon emphasized that it takes the incident “extremely seriously” and plans to improve its advertising and marketing processes.
It is important to emphasize that the content creators whose likenesses were used in the AI videos were not only uninvolved in their creation but also did not grant any permission for such use. For instance, the creator DanieltheDemon publicly stated that he did not authorize the use of his image in this manner, commenting on a Game Central TikTok video.
The First Descendant was released last year and currently holds “mixed” reviews on Steam. GameSpot`s review of The First Descendant was also not particularly positive, giving the game a rating of 3 out of 10.
Earlier this month, a collaboration with NieR: Automata was announced, making characters 2B and A2 available as in-game skins.