The investors behind Ashes of Creation, the now-defunct MMORPG developed by Intrepid Studios, which raised $3.2 million on Kickstarter, have been embroiled in a messy and very public legal battle following the game’s removal from Steam in February.
The ensuing back-and-forth between former CEO Steven Sharif and the studio’s board has made the veracity of both sides’ claims difficult to verify, but, following an extremely detailed report published by the YouTube channel NefasQS on April 11, we may now be a step closer to finally knowing the truth.
NefasQS’s newest report claims to “have obtained and processed the entire Intrepid Studios general ledger from 2015 to 2026,” which they state paints “a troubling picture of a company that was on the threshold of financial death at multiple points in its history.”
To refer to the contents of the general ledger (which NefasQS published following their report) as “troubling” seems like a pretty huge understatement, as the alleged info states that Sharif and his husband, John Moore, used the Ashes of Creation budget to fund their extremely lavish lifestyle.
This includes payments made to a personal chef (who, as revealed by a member of Intrepid Studios’ staff, worked privately for Sharif and Moore), $41,717 in payments made to auction sites for historical curios, a $421.91 payment to a luxury cigar retailer, and tens of thousands of dollars worth of payments to different TCG and miniature figurine storefronts.
However, arguably the most concerning allegation in the general ledger concerns a company named Gore Oil, which NefasQS states received $81,166. Gore Oil Company was the deed owner of Steven Sharif and John Moore’s San Diego mansion, which was sold to the couple on April 11, 2020, for $4.9 million.
Since the new video went live, someone has been trying to make it go away. “Someone already filed a privacy complaint against this video, just a heads-up but we will be disputing it,” NefasQS wrote in the comments you YouTube. “Someone also reported my Reddit account from our community subreddit to the admins.”
The last time we heard from Intrepid Studios’ former CEO, Steven Sharif, was on March 6, when he posted his victory lap statement on Ashes of Creation’s official Discord, following his “first legal victory” over Intrepid’s Board of Directors in the United States District Court of Southern California on March 3. Well, technically, that wasn’t the last time, as he also posted an emoji of a flexing arm on March 19 in the same Discord server.
Since then, Sharif has remained quiet, which lines up with his statement on March 6 that he would only defend himself “in court, where the facts matter and where evidence would determine the outcome.”
