Ashes of Creation
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moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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Burns
Avatar of War Slayer
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In the non-MMO non-indie scene, there have been some successful AA studios that used crowdfunding, but I don't remember them all. Of the three I do recall (Obsidian, Owlcat, and Larian), Larian with Divinity: OS 1 and 2 were probably the most successful, monetarily, which allowed them to make the big bucks on BG3.
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Gravel
Mr. Poopybutthole
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Like
rhinohelix
stated, they're all trying to launch with a decade of content to compete with something like WoW. It's a massive mistake.It's something I mentioned in the MnM thread a long time ago. They all like to brag about how huge the world is, but 90% of your world will be abandoned as people figure out the ideal leveling path. It's all wasted effort and it ends up consuming so much of their time.
moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
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You need someone who isn't shit at budgeting who also has management experience and is highly creative. You need an engine either built from scratch, or one that is finely tuned to the art style you plan to use, and has the flexibility for modding and tools so you can create your own subsystems for things like questing and UI elements, etc.
Figure out the costs for all that, and enough devs to make it happen in 5 years or less, and that's your cost of entry. If you can get a bank or investment group willing to fund you without taking control, then you can get it done.
Getting the engine done with a starting zone and some basic quests would be proof of concept for a decent business plan to present to people. If you have a coherent story and world already written out, with some early concept art, you have a solid start.
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Ambiturner
Ssraeszha Raider
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Yes, which is why calling it a scam is retarded. It's just good old fashioned incompetence
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Pretty much. Someone that was definitely and obviously not in the position to make the shit happen. Wasted tons of money and 10 yrs of peoples labor to make something that is like 25% done, lol.
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I learned long ago not to put any money into upcoming games and to just wait to see how it ships.
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jayrebb
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Case by case refunds can be done if Steam agrees access was an issue. Being unable to access or play the game ( assuming you have a very low play time, like 6-12h max) can get you refunded.
Happens all the time with other games, it's not impossible. The instability and queues should be enough to get low hours players refunded due to unable to play. Obviously the tens of hundreds of hours guys are shit out of luck completely.
rhinohelix
Dental Dammer
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The originals were delivering a base level of functionality in a static, theme park world. What Steven and Intrepid were trying to create is massively, massively more complex, involving destructibility, weather, seasons, day/night cycles, player building, PVP, and evolving world, etc et al AND fun.
You have to make a smaller game and build in hooks and level your game up and out. One thing (old) Blizzard did really well was the basics: Their networking was ultra-top notch and their basic game design was amazing, and FUN. Their design esthetic was fantastic, recognizable, and simple to render. They didn't try to do everything at launch; they made a 2nd/3rd gen MMO that beat the pants off the current market leaders by being a step up in every way, with all the (old) Blizzard hallmarks.
Steven tried to build Next-Gen 2028 Even Bigger WOW all in one go and those ever expanding goalposts and ambitious design goals fell in on the whole studio.
Edit:
I can't remember what I said at the time when I played but when I got my alpha key and ran through the tutorial area I was severely disappointed. I played for a couple of days but I thought it was terrible. I mean, I have seen alphas before and realize there is a massive ton of things that still need to go in but I had a bad feeling right then. I thought, I will come back for the Beta and see if it improves. I know a lot of people played and had a great time but that wasn't my experience at all. I was so hyped for this, as much for exploring the world as anything else. I thought their world concept had so much promise.
At some point, someone should have sat down and said, "We need to launch by X date, what can we realistically put in by then?" and then dramatically scaled back the promises. One continent, 5 races, one ocean area, player ships, and dynamic weather and player towns to level 3: Everything comes later. Or whatever worked for them, Feature prune and pushed to xpac, otherwise the whole thing dies. They were in trouble when they started selling alpha/beta access and I guess the spin was so successful no one wanted to see it.
Steven should have reached out to Chris Roberts for a loan or to have Intrepid be bought out by Cloud Imperium Games.
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Kirun
Buzzfeed Editor
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I think people underestimate how much the definition of "finished" has changed.
Those early MMOs (EQ, DAoC, AO, even early WoW) were absolutely built with worse tools but they were also far "simpler" games. Content density was low, assets were reused constantly, systems were loosely coupled, and grinding was the content (or constant repeat PvP "grinding", as was the case with DAoC). A zone could be "done" with a handful of mobs and a dungeon and that was acceptable. Player expectations were also way lower. Broken quests, bad balance, downtime, missing QoL, shitloads of bugs, missing/non-working content/zones, crashing, etc. - all of that was "tolerated" because you didn't know any better yet (they were novel) and there wasn't much competition. A game being "90% working" after a few patches was fine. Today, a launch like that gets obliterated on Reddit, Steam, and YouTube in 24 hours.
Modern MMOs also have way more going on under the hood. High-fidelity assets, complex animation systems, server-side simulation, anti-cheat, analytics, live-service infrastructure, regional compliance, etc. Better tools don't cancel out the fact that each asset and system now takes far more work than it did 20 years ago.
On top of that, the business reality changed. Early MMOs were made by smaller, risk-tolerant teams. Modern MMOs are $100M+ projects with publishers, investors, and retention metrics driving design. That leads to feature creep, endless iteration, and risk aversion. Everyone's afraid of shipping something that isn't perfectly "safe." The real irony is that we did reinvent the wheel, in a sense. Because monetization, retention, and "having a unique hook" keep forcing redesigns of proven systems.
So yeah, in theory we could make a solid MMO faster by copying what worked and accepting rough edges. In practice, modern expectations, tech complexity, and corporate fear make that almost impossible.
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Daidraco
Avatar of War Slayer
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I think it rings more surprising simply because the game is for the most part, playable. I didnt mind putting my money towards the game because I saw a product that I thought could eventually exist in its own space.
The backend architecture with that server to server thing that basically segmented the load into smaller and smaller units, was it really necessary? It still, to this day, doesnt work "well" - and theyve been working on that for years. Then, the storyboard mechanics where each and every province would have its own story and quests. A lot of work and spinning wheels just to get shit ready for zones that havent even been created. The city thing was unique and novel, too. Where the whole settlement would go through layers of transition, and it would basically just load different "chunks" depending on its level. But that didnt work well either, as even in the steam release - you're falling through into the "hole" that those chunks resided in. Never mind the whole idea behind the city, built on the backs of PVE, being destroyed by PVP as people have mentioned. (New World, Im looking at you too.) Then, as far as individual mechanics where your caravan would transition to a raft and back again.. How often that mechanic, and mechanics like that.. how often would they be used? But you put a lot of dev time into that to make it work? We can literally go back to most of the videos of touting a new feature of the game and see how they just were, for the most part, reinventing the wheel or worse, putting the cart before the horse in terms of what should be developed first.
Never mind that the entire noobie experience is just awful. Even after the bit of refinement they did after steam launch - it just sucked. There are so many Quality of Life additions that happened in the genre since its inception that going back just kind of fucking sucks. Even with the very, very limited hand holding they do - it abruptly ends at roughly level 5 and then they expect you to "find your way." The map is awful. No LFG tool. Dropping items on death in a PVE death, never mind the exp loss and repair. Gearing in general just being awful. Spreading people out HOURS apart with no quick travel? "Hey man. Want to come up to the most northern part of the world, that is literally an hour+ to get to and exp with us?" Expect the response "Hey man. We're going to call it. Sorry!"
I could go on and on about my dissatisfaction with the game, and I just dont think Im alone. For the amount of money they put into the game, I just dont think I would have made anywhere near the same choices that were made. Or in other words, if I was putting a huge portion of my net worth into making a game - I would have made a game a fraction of the size and perfected that core experience. I mean think about the sheer size of the team that Shariff had going for this game? Wasnt it HUNDREDS of people? Just pure disappointment that this game didnt deliver.
I think this games fault was mostly scope creep and trying new things that havent been done before. Scott reminded me a lot of Todd Howard when he talks about Fall Out or Elder Scrolls etc. Every time I turned around over the last, what, 9 years, the ideas became more and more grandiose.
The backend architecture with that server to server thing that basically segmented the load into smaller and smaller units, was it really necessary? It still, to this day, doesnt work "well" - and theyve been working on that for years. Then, the storyboard mechanics where each and every province would have its own story and quests. A lot of work and spinning wheels just to get shit ready for zones that havent even been created. The city thing was unique and novel, too. Where the whole settlement would go through layers of transition, and it would basically just load different "chunks" depending on its level. But that didnt work well either, as even in the steam release - you're falling through into the "hole" that those chunks resided in. Never mind the whole idea behind the city, built on the backs of PVE, being destroyed by PVP as people have mentioned. (New World, Im looking at you too.) Then, as far as individual mechanics where your caravan would transition to a raft and back again.. How often that mechanic, and mechanics like that.. how often would they be used? But you put a lot of dev time into that to make it work? We can literally go back to most of the videos of touting a new feature of the game and see how they just were, for the most part, reinventing the wheel or worse, putting the cart before the horse in terms of what should be developed first.
Never mind that the entire noobie experience is just awful. Even after the bit of refinement they did after steam launch - it just sucked. There are so many Quality of Life additions that happened in the genre since its inception that going back just kind of fucking sucks. Even with the very, very limited hand holding they do - it abruptly ends at roughly level 5 and then they expect you to "find your way." The map is awful. No LFG tool. Dropping items on death in a PVE death, never mind the exp loss and repair. Gearing in general just being awful. Spreading people out HOURS apart with no quick travel? "Hey man. Want to come up to the most northern part of the world, that is literally an hour+ to get to and exp with us?" Expect the response "Hey man. We're going to call it. Sorry!"
I could go on and on about my dissatisfaction with the game, and I just dont think Im alone. For the amount of money they put into the game, I just dont think I would have made anywhere near the same choices that were made. Or in other words, if I was putting a huge portion of my net worth into making a game - I would have made a game a fraction of the size and perfected that core experience. I mean think about the sheer size of the team that Shariff had going for this game? Wasnt it HUNDREDS of people? Just pure disappointment that this game didnt deliver.
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Heres a great breakdown:
Posting here as well in case the thread gets nuked
Posting here as well in case the thread gets nuked
** The project wasn't a passion project—it was a high-interest debt cycle. Sharif used MLM-style marketing and referral "kickbacks" to maintain a veneer of success, while the actual development was being propped up by high-interest loans from the same people he worked with in previous schemes.
When the board finally pulled the plug on 31 January 2026, they didn't just fire Sharif—they effectively foreclosed on the dream to salvage the remaining assets for the creditors.
The Finding: In 2017, Intrepid Studios issued a promissory note (a loan) to the Ya-Ya Legacy Trust. Instead of paying this loan back with the $3.2M raised on Kickstarter, Intrepid converted this debt into stock in 2018 and 2019.
The Implication: This suggests the studio was already soliciting external "bridge loans" as early as 2017 to stay afloat, and lacked the liquidity to repay them, forcing them to give up equity (9.7%) to Jason Caramanis.
2. The "2021 Restart"
Deep-dive community investigations (often cited as "Ashes of Illusion") point to a massive discrepancy in development assets that suggests the game was quietly scrapped and restarted around 2021. OSINT Evidence: Comparisons of "Node" system footage and character models from 2017–2020 vs. 2022–2025 show a lack of continuity.
The Suspicion: Critics allege the studio spent its first 4 years building a prototype that was technically unviable, then secretly "restarted" development in Unreal Engine 5 while pretending the old work was still valid. This explains why, after 9 years, basic systems were still unfinished in the 2025 Early Access.
3. Trek Holdings & The FTB Suspension
Corporate records for Trek Holdings LLC (Sharif's entity) show it was suspended by the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB).
Why this matters: In California, an FTB suspension typically happens for one of two reasons: failure to pay taxes or failure to file returns.
The abnormality: For a CEO claiming to have vast personal wealth to "self-fund" an MMO, having his primary holding company suspended for tax non-compliance is a massive red flag regarding his actual liquidity and administrative competence.
4. MLM-Style "Referral" Structures
OSINT on the studio's leadership and investors reveals a dense network of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) connections, specifically to Jeunesse Global.
The Network: Jason Caramanis (Ya-Ya Trust) and other key early figures are linked to the same MLM circles as Sharif.
The Pattern: The game's referral program—offering persistent "cash back" for recruiting other players—mirrors MLM "downline" structures. Analysts suggest the business model was designed less like a subscription MMO and more like a digital recruitment scheme to generate cash flow for the founders before a product existed.
5. The "Cash Grab" Launch Timeline
The timeline of the Sada Systems Lawsuit perfectly correlates with the sudden push for a paid "Early Access" in late 2025.
December 1, 2025: Sada Systems sues Intrepid for $850,000.
December 2025: Intrepid rushes Ashes of Creation into a paid Early Access on Steam, despite obvious technical flaws.
In other words: The launch was likely forced by the Board to generate immediate liquidity to pay the Sada settlement and avoid a default judgment, which would have triggered the liens held by Ya-Ya/Caramanis.
Summary of Findings: The "self-funded" story appears to have been a cover for a high-risk venture funded by loans from MLM associates. When the studio couldn't pay its cloud server bills ($850k) or insurance (Aetna), the "hidden" Board seized control, forcing Sharif out.
6. Outsourcing Deception
While Intrepid marketed its "state-of-the-art" San Diego facility and 250+ employee headcount, internal leaks and community tracking reveal a heavy reliance on cheap labor.
Shadow Development: Reports indicate Intrepid outsourced entire biomes, zones, and core assets to developers in countries with significantly lower labor costs.
Math Deficit: Critics pointed out that a $800,000/week burn rate (~$40M/year) for a 250-person team is statistically improbable for a standard studio of its size, suggesting the money was either being mismanaged or funneled elsewhere.
7. The "Recidivist" Suspension
The suspension of Trek Holdings LLC and Intrepid Studios by the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) was not a one-time "clerical error".
The Pattern: Records show the studio faced near-suspension or warnings multiple times for failing to submit annual accounts and non-payment of taxes.
Suspicious Activity: Being suspended by the FTB is a lengthy process involving multiple ignored notices. For a CEO claiming vast personal wealth, failing to pay basic corporate taxes is a massive red flag for insolvency or intentional tax avoidance.
The game was rushed to Steam in a broken, "Mostly Negative" state specifically to generate a quick burst of liquidity to settle with Sada and Aetna. When that cash grab failed to stabilize the ship, the Board exercised its rights under the Caramanis lien to take control.
When the board finally pulled the plug on 31 January 2026, they didn't just fire Sharif—they effectively foreclosed on the dream to salvage the remaining assets for the creditors.
- The "Debt-for-Equity" Swap
The Finding: In 2017, Intrepid Studios issued a promissory note (a loan) to the Ya-Ya Legacy Trust. Instead of paying this loan back with the $3.2M raised on Kickstarter, Intrepid converted this debt into stock in 2018 and 2019.
The Implication: This suggests the studio was already soliciting external "bridge loans" as early as 2017 to stay afloat, and lacked the liquidity to repay them, forcing them to give up equity (9.7%) to Jason Caramanis.
2. The "2021 Restart"
Deep-dive community investigations (often cited as "Ashes of Illusion") point to a massive discrepancy in development assets that suggests the game was quietly scrapped and restarted around 2021. OSINT Evidence: Comparisons of "Node" system footage and character models from 2017–2020 vs. 2022–2025 show a lack of continuity.
The Suspicion: Critics allege the studio spent its first 4 years building a prototype that was technically unviable, then secretly "restarted" development in Unreal Engine 5 while pretending the old work was still valid. This explains why, after 9 years, basic systems were still unfinished in the 2025 Early Access.
3. Trek Holdings & The FTB Suspension
Corporate records for Trek Holdings LLC (Sharif's entity) show it was suspended by the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB).
Why this matters: In California, an FTB suspension typically happens for one of two reasons: failure to pay taxes or failure to file returns.
The abnormality: For a CEO claiming to have vast personal wealth to "self-fund" an MMO, having his primary holding company suspended for tax non-compliance is a massive red flag regarding his actual liquidity and administrative competence.
4. MLM-Style "Referral" Structures
OSINT on the studio's leadership and investors reveals a dense network of Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) connections, specifically to Jeunesse Global.
The Network: Jason Caramanis (Ya-Ya Trust) and other key early figures are linked to the same MLM circles as Sharif.
The Pattern: The game's referral program—offering persistent "cash back" for recruiting other players—mirrors MLM "downline" structures. Analysts suggest the business model was designed less like a subscription MMO and more like a digital recruitment scheme to generate cash flow for the founders before a product existed.
5. The "Cash Grab" Launch Timeline
The timeline of the Sada Systems Lawsuit perfectly correlates with the sudden push for a paid "Early Access" in late 2025.
December 1, 2025: Sada Systems sues Intrepid for $850,000.
December 2025: Intrepid rushes Ashes of Creation into a paid Early Access on Steam, despite obvious technical flaws.
In other words: The launch was likely forced by the Board to generate immediate liquidity to pay the Sada settlement and avoid a default judgment, which would have triggered the liens held by Ya-Ya/Caramanis.
Summary of Findings: The "self-funded" story appears to have been a cover for a high-risk venture funded by loans from MLM associates. When the studio couldn't pay its cloud server bills ($850k) or insurance (Aetna), the "hidden" Board seized control, forcing Sharif out.
6. Outsourcing Deception
While Intrepid marketed its "state-of-the-art" San Diego facility and 250+ employee headcount, internal leaks and community tracking reveal a heavy reliance on cheap labor.
Shadow Development: Reports indicate Intrepid outsourced entire biomes, zones, and core assets to developers in countries with significantly lower labor costs.
Math Deficit: Critics pointed out that a $800,000/week burn rate (~$40M/year) for a 250-person team is statistically improbable for a standard studio of its size, suggesting the money was either being mismanaged or funneled elsewhere.
7. The "Recidivist" Suspension
The suspension of Trek Holdings LLC and Intrepid Studios by the California Franchise Tax Board (FTB) was not a one-time "clerical error".
The Pattern: Records show the studio faced near-suspension or warnings multiple times for failing to submit annual accounts and non-payment of taxes.
Suspicious Activity: Being suspended by the FTB is a lengthy process involving multiple ignored notices. For a CEO claiming vast personal wealth, failing to pay basic corporate taxes is a massive red flag for insolvency or intentional tax avoidance.
The game was rushed to Steam in a broken, "Mostly Negative" state specifically to generate a quick burst of liquidity to settle with Sada and Aetna. When that cash grab failed to stabilize the ship, the Board exercised its rights under the Caramanis lien to take control.
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Fucker
Log Wizard
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Yeah. This is the guy who I talked about before. He spends a lot of time in that video saying that modern devs in the US are lazy as fuck. This is why we get these massive budgets and long development schedules because people are doing fuck all and taking a long time to do it.
Ashes of Creation is the prime example of this. I bought the Steam thing, played it, and was nearly immediately numb with how little they had to show for all those years dumped into the game. What, nearly 10 years in and it was barely a tech demo, with most of the features MIA, and with poorly implemented features that did exist. That they had all these employees and were also outsourcing is fucking amazing.
Another good example of people doing noting is Diablo 4. It had 9000 people working on it in total from start to finish. Not all at once, but that it is a 4 digit number at all is stunning, and it was pushing 5 digits.
And then 1/3 of game devs got fired last year. Gee, I wonder why.
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According to the link I shared, they scrapped the game entirely at one point and rebuilt from scratch. Which definitely makes sense given how underwhelming the game looked and played leading up to the Steam release. For 10 years of development, this game was wildly underbaked.
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rhinohelix
Dental Dammer
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See, some of those IDEAS are amazing! in concept but someone has to make them work well. And make them work well on a small level. Make a single city work like this. All MMOs are graphical front ends for databases and database interactions/transformations. Per Daidraco, I think they were missing big chucks of polish that WoW nailed so hard; THAT's what made it blow up to 10m players where EQ had been limited to 600k.
I mean, if you have an excellent team of super high level John Carmark coders who can bust out these new features, by all means, change the industry. Even if they could have, though, would people have agreed with his design philosophy around the newbie experience? If everything else is great and you have enough grognards, fans will fill in the gaps, probably. Eventually even GGG gave in and made an in game trading system, though. Runescape still makes money selling whatever experience that is but they aren't trying to push the genre forward.
Remember EQ Next and Storybricks? Go back and read some of that hype. One might think with all the AI BS we have now that would make a comeback but Storybricks is still dead 12 years on.
It's a sad day because we all wants games to play, I'm sad because we all want MMOs that push the genre forward rather than regurge Corp slop we continuously get. I'm sorry to see another person lose a fortune trying to launch a game studio because it means fewer people will do it, ala Curt and Steven. I mean, We need more Jimmy Johnsons and fewer Jerry Jones, which is what seems to come forward.
EDIT:
Just read the spoilered Link re: Ya ya whatever. Oh my god. No wonder Narc deleted his channel.
Zindan
Bronze Baronet of the Realm
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Correct, it is the people involved with the process, especially in the US. The talent is there, but it is so mired / restricted by HR that the pace of what can be done is slowed to a crawl.
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MMOs are like adventure games, RTS, etc. They were interesting relics of a specific time in gaming, but the combinations of features that made them interesting were parceled out into different genres / game modes. MMOs became big before social networks, discord, etc. Even when WoW was big, one of the 'cool' selling points (even when showing it to Conan) was 'wow that is another person playing the game that you see!'. Nowadays, everything is online, we have persistent community outside of games, the MMO-esque character development and online features are in other games doing it better with less time investment. MMOs, like the other genres, only exist artificially now or as relics / nostalgia bait. They are unc games that require the free time of college students.