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, there are now more allegations flying around about how the project’s funds were managed.
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.”
The new allegations revolve around an alleged excel spreadsheet NefasQS published that lists payments by the studio. Some of the info purports to show that Sharif and his husband, John Moore, used some of the Ashes of Creation budget to fund a “lavish lifestyle.”
In a statement to Kotaku, Sharif disputed the veracity of the data in the spreadsheet and the reporting from NefasQS. “NefasQS has been fed false and defamatory information by individuals with an axe to grind, in an effort to litigate this dispute in the public domain alongside our lawsuit already pending in federal court,” he said. “Rather than verify those claims, he has chosen to repeat them, acting as a mouthpiece to advance a narrative that drives clicks and views, with disregard for basic journalistic standards.”
NefasQS alleges some company funds were spend on things like payments made to a personal chef, who is claimed to have 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 one of the more serious allegations in the general ledger concerns a company named Gore Oil, which NefasQS states received $81,166. Gore Oil Company was the deed owner of Sharif and Moore’s San Diego mansion, which was sold to the couple on April 11, 2020, for $4.9 million.
Sharif, who is continuing to litigate these matters in court, told Kotaku there was no misappropriation of Kickstarter funds whatsoever and that any assertions regarding a “lavish lifestyle,” or personal misuse of company funds, were “categorically false.” “An examination of the facts through the judicial process has already revealed that the parties behind these claims orchestrated an unlawful foreclosure to take control of Intrepid’s assets from the people who built Ashes of Creation, with the intent to exploit those assets for their own benefit,” Sharif said.
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.”
Sharif previously posted a victory lap statement on Ashes of Creation’s official Discord back in March following his “first legal victory” against Intrepid’s Board of Directors in the United States District Court of Southern California.
Update 4/12/2026 8:22 p.m. ET: Added a new statement from Sharif and clarified some of the allegations contained in the new report.
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