NEXON ARE DICKS

So in fall of 2025, Nexons game The First Descendant held their first skin design contest. I figured, hey I play the game (occasionally), like the art style, and happen to be a "drawer", I should do something for it!

Though my "cautionary self" said I should give my head a shake and realize this kind of contest from any game company is often wrought with shady garbage. The team doing the game seemed to be genuinely trying to do something to interact with the fans and overall had a good reputation. Nah it'll be fine!

So I buried my concerns and put something together that followed all their submission criteria. I used their character template and did wip progress snapshots as they required. They were "very" concerned about people using AI in the submissions. Nexon wouldn't want to use plagiarized work after all. I'm glad they went to such lengths to insure submissions were GENUINE. It showed they wanted a "FAIR" competition and NON-PLAGIARIZED designs in their game. Cause we all know plagiarizing is bad, don't we Nexon.

I think it's safe to assume Nexon is "very" aware that plagiarizing is bad, and don't want plagiarized material in their game.

Did I mention that Nexon is concerned about plagiarism in their game?

So, I did up my submission, sent it in with the wip snapshots, and got the notification that my submission had been received, good stuff. A few days later I check to see if there's any updates, and see my submission has been deleted, or at least unviewable. I figured it was a problem with their website or such. I couldn't try sending it again because they only allowed one sub per category, per user, and expressly noted in the submitting process they will ignore email inquiries about submissions. Well this is a great start isn't it.

The whole idea was players submit their designs, the studio heads pick their favourites, and let the player base vote amoungst those ones. The top voted ones get put into the game.

When the voting page went live I see my submission is absent. I guess they didn't dig it. This is actually fine, for whatever reason they rejected it, that's up to them. I'm not owed anything. It royally sucks to be excluded, but it's their contest, they can pick the entries to vote on as they see fit. Game over, moving on.

Did I mention that Nexon is a company concerned about plagiarism?

Cut to a few days ago (March2026) when the winning entries are released (*congrats to all who won btw!), and I see one lone design that looks suspiciously familiar.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those fuckers! NEXON (*A ....COMPANY....VERY..FUCKING.. CONCERNED... ABOUT... PLAGIARISM*) rejected my entry, then took my design, did a bastardized draw over of it and released it as a "official" skin. What the hell is this nonsense!?

I love how clever they though it was to swap the bare leg in the design to the other side to better help in disguising the swipe. Like an elephant hiding behind a telephone pole.

My bigger thought though is why? Why exclude my entry in the first place? Why do a crappier version of it rather than just doing a whole new design? Why risk the backlash of PLAGIARIZING an entry in their own fucking contest?

(NEXON, A COMPANY THAT WILL GO TO EXTREME LENGTHS TO HIDE PLAGIARISM)

The level of ignorance and stupidity is only outweighed by the bad faith they've shown here.

The salt in the fucking wound when you see a bastardized version of your work right fucking next to entries who got a fair shake to boot.

Suffice it to say my cautionary self is saying the obligatory "I told you so!" story right now. I normally stay away from contests for just this kind of reason, guess I just needed a reminder why.

I hope you make lots of money off that skin Nexon, I have the perfect design ready for your next contest. There's a giant bag of dicks waiting with your name on it.