I will say, I’ve paid attention/written more about Ashes of Creation in just these past few days than I did since 2018 when I first mentioned why I was really writing about it. And this current postings obviously isn’t the best type of coverage.
Reading this article (then watching the linked video(s) on that YouTube channel whom I believe had also put money into the game), it made me shake my head a lot more than anything else. What stood out to me was the IRONY in this entire situation. I’ve given my prior takes on Sharif and the game (his MLM background definitely created some bias against this project BUT the game itself once the design objectives were highlighted, was something that didn’t interest me). BTW, these interviews are just one side of the story (more on that later).
But the irony I am talking about is a bunch of MLM “entrepreneurs” (who made lots of money like Sharif) in whatever pyramid scheme they had been involved with, ended up throwing money (aka investing) at Sharif and are now alleging that this entire thing was a premeditated scam. What I see here is a “circle of gullibility” with one MLM grifter bilking these other MLM grifters.
The investor (who says he is out $12.5 million) that is providing these accusations is Jason Caramanis (who also mentioned he has been at the top of many of these MLM pyramids). He was also the one who recommended a family friend (Tom Alkazin) to put money (he/his wife’s life savings of $2 million) into Ashes of Creation. Alkazin himself was also involved in MLM’s (and unlike Caramanis, was found liable by the Federal Trade Commission in a past scheme and settled it by paying a $1.2 million fine and the forefeiture of 1.6 acres of property). As of this writing, I have no idea about Robert Dawson (who allegedly put over $80 million into this from between 2022-2025), the wealthy investor Caramanis had introduced to Sharif.
These dates are important because the fallout between Caramanis occurred well before 2022. That itself raises questions (like any rational person would’ve walked away from this trainwreck much sooner). Watching this other video is nuts (if all true, continually handing that kind of money to Sharif doesn’t even make reasonable sense. It’s why just hearing one side of the story being vented out online to any content creator who said yes, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. That doesn’t mean Sharif isn’t free from any wrong doing either (more on this later). From my POV, I don’t have a high level of trust of these MLM types.
One of the other “revelations” is the allegation that Sharif actually put ZERO of his own money into Intrepid Studios and Ashes of Creation. If true, that would be a huge misrepresentation (if there is actual evidence) to back up those claims (but then again, as top level MLM grifters, misrepresentation of the types of products being pushed was usually part of that deal – maybe that comes with the territory with these folks). We will see.
The ones who reach the top of these pyramids become part of this network which new MLM schemes end up tapping into because they know those individuals have a talent for finding gullible people to recruit into the whole thing. Thus it is no surprise to see the above happening where you need to think like a top line MLM’er; seeing it as “there is this great investment opportunity in a new MMO being created” to recruit others (more gullible) into because many of these folks believe they can make riches elsewhere since they did it in multilevel marketing.
MLM itself is a vehicle (the product, supply chain, distribution, business backend, etc are handled by actual companies). The ones signing up people are promoters (and some are true believers). What they have to have is that quality of being inspirational where they are able to sell ice to an eskimo at these seminars (which they hold to recruit those who are downline from them). And we know how many fall for a good story (new game releases have no shortage of folks falling for it over and over again). Just look at this circle of hype and hopium (the following cycle) when it comes to new game releases (especially crowdfunded ones).
What does become clear is this lack of self-awareness with a lot of these “get rich quick multilevel marketing” folks when it comes to situations outside of this MLM industry because the rules and norms are different (it’s not a flattering look because it does highlight the “greater fool” theory in action). On the polar opposite side, there are those of us rooted in reality, ethics, morals, and having an actual conscience (more on that below).
Again, I had an early lead into XanGo (and could’ve been at that top level). But when I did research into it (learning that it was an MLM), there was NO WAY that I could engage in something like that (overpriced mangosteen fruit juice being promoted as this health miracle via a pyramid scheme). If people want to make money this way, that is up to them to decide (it’s just not for me because bottomline, a bunch of people downline are buying a bunch of overpriced stuff that may be misrepresented in some fashion).
So when I hear Caramanis justifying his own place in this MLM business model (and him helping many others become millionaires because of it), all it highlights is the lack of moral clarity/ethics. He is of course right to be angry about being defrauded for maybe not doing a lot more due diligence (deciding to “invest” in the game/studio). But no one can say there was no “caveat emptor” with this Kickstarted project and Sharif’s own background (which even someone like myself knew about).
Also, if it was known earlier (behind the scenes) by some of these folks regarding the long running issues with the actual business/Sharif himself, why in the world would you continue pumping money into this game/helping Sharif out (Caramanis seems to have a lot of documentation and plans to file a lawsuit).
With that said, I wouldn’t be doing interviews (ones that are being livestreamed to boot) because it’s not something you do if you want actual results from the legal system; I’d be having this properly being vetted through a lawyer that specializes in consumer protection and fraud. It’s also “funny” reading the YouTube comments and seeing some calling Caramanis a “hero” and dogpiling on to what isn’t even the beginning of the full story. What I see/hear is “he said, she said” sort of accusations.
But I also get it; it’s part of setting the narrative early on. Caramanis reaching out to a bunch of YouTube content creator is part of the PR to get a larger group (which includes a percentage of gullible people) on his side (makes sense if you intend to try and raise some funds in the future to cover legal costs or to get others to sign up for a class action lawsuit). But as I mentioned up top, it is only one side of the story (one bilked investor airing out his grievances with a YouTube creator).
I know many don’t like Kira because of how he shifted to non-gaming topics and/or went down the doom/gloom route (some even inaccurately saying he is just reacting to other videos about this drama and siding with Sharif – maybe I am watching a completely different video from those folks), but he actually does a much better job with this one at breaking it down (versus being a sounding board); especially the lawsuit filed by TFE Games Holdings, LLC.
This company was registered in Delaware on December 29, 2025 using Cogency Global as its registered agent (this is a corporate service provider that offers compliance and statutory representation services for corporate governance purposes – basically used to quickly setup a basic LLC) and as noted in the following video (where the closure of Intrepid Studios was planned as part of this restructuring), is the company that plans to take over Ashes of Creation and hire (back) a smaller team.
Let’s be honest here. Anyone who continues to believe in this game needs to have their head checked. It is damaged goods for one (clearly needing a whole lot more work and money). Secondly (and most important), the IP is now in control by another bunch of MLM folks who have shown they have no clue about this stuff. The way everything is going down is indicative of the shitshow that will continue to happen with this IP. Good luck trying to hire back a good percentage of the team that were working on the game.
Since Dawson (one of the key “board” members) holds the largest percentage of the cash infusion, he is one of the key figures involved with TFE Games Holdings. As mentioned in the other articles/video(s), Dawson tried talking with the technical leads and they wisely refused to even entertain that. I mean look at how everyone was simply let go from Intrepid Studios (versus a more orderly process); who is going to trust this TFE Games Holdings (that have people who have even less of a clue than when Sharif first started Intrepid Studios and had to learn as he went).
The only reason we know about Dawson is because of Caramanis doing this dump online with a YouTube creator who also bought into the game. And we’re going to end up learning more about Dawson (not going to be surprised when the Internet ends up digging up info that he also made his fortune from some sort of “get rick quick” scheme).
Kira did mention he received that e-mail (from Caramanis) but gave the reasons for why he didn’t followup on it (IMHO, it’s better this way). For myself, the more interesting part is learning that Caramanis was already talking with Sharif since 2015 (until at least 2021) and that this relationship was both positive and negative over those years. Furthermore, he was basically done by 2021 (which brings up the before mentioned timeline of when he introduced Dawson to Sharif in 2022; how does that make any sense?)
At some point though, the red flags should’ve gone off (to walk away/to look at legal options earlier instead of constantly sinking money into this project). Folks like myself had better sense once we saw Sharif was involved with Ashes of Creation to stay away (not being enamored by the actual game concept itself made it easier to just tune out).
The crazier thing is the restructuring proposal; they still wanted to keep Sharif as creative director (when TFE Gamings Holdings has this lawsuit alleging all of this stuff that Sharif did; it is lunacy and all I see are lies on every side of this. Again, think like a “top of the pyramid” MLM entrepreneur, and it starts to make sense (because lot of these folks have no sense outside of that bubble; all they see is how many suckers that can be recruited to have a bunch of money funneled to them).
As Kira noted, the DM exchanges were “cringe”. Not surprising; this is what happens when regular people get a bag of gold dropped on their heads (in this case, a bunch of MLM grifters). They have no inkling how the real world and actual business dealings work. It’s the same with those who made a lot of money in crypto; they live/operate in their own reality. Regardless, the end result is this situation (people who have way too much money but not enough sense outside of the area they made their fortune).
Sadly, there were also a lot of regular folks that spent money on this who weren’t part of that group/not as well off as those folks (and I feel bad for maybe a smaller number of those folks). At the same time, anyone who has been following gaming since the prior decade, knows very well about crowdsourced funded titles being a problem area. Thus my level of sympathy also isn’t that great because there is a degree of personal responsibility here (it is called performing due diligence).
I’ve made it clear in this blog that I’ve stayed away from whaling in games because this industry has only been enabled by these folks. The executive suits that ended up running the gaming industry are mainly motivated by this where the result has been game designs that are monetization focused first, while actual great overall gameplay experience has been a lower level priority (ignore the marketing PR and game dev speak). This is why it turned into “online only”/games as a service trash and why “stop killing games” became a thing (and why I am pro-game preservationist). But I digress.
Again, it is no different with the folks who made a lot of money in investing, in NFT’s, in crypto, etc, and then believe they know everything there is to know (using that wealth and associated power that tends to come with it to influence decision making across various industries; some tech executives fall into this category). Like I make it clear that I’m not any kind of genius with investing (and I keep most of that to my main blog).
The TFE Games Holdings lawsuit (against Sharif and Moore) is as Kira noted, filled with a lot of claims that aren’t backed by actual evidentiary exhibits. But that isn’t the point of the lawsuit. State court systems are also notoriously slow due to backlog of cases; meaning this kind of filing will of course serve as the fuel being used in these interviews and by commenters (jumping/piling on to that bandwagon); it’s called the “court of public opinion” (one that Sharif has lost the plot on and is getting absolutely shit on). Again, think like a “top of the pyramid” MLM’er.
But here’s the thing (again); Kickstarted games (especially MMO’s) were already this problematic mine field, yet people still keep throwing money at them. It’s part of the enabling of the bad actors who end up taking advantage of that system of hopium. And when you have rich folks continually feeding money into the system (just because they can), there is a degree of personal responsibility involved to make sure you aren’t just throwing money at something that may not pan out.
Just reading and watching these “call in” video(s)/listening to the call for example, provides this small peak into some of the folks that were at the top of a pyramid scheme (which were often times questionable product claims that were being sold at ultra-inflated prices and thus victimizing a lot of other lower level gullible people), now making a lot of noise about being the victim of fraud. And surely most of these folks already knew how Sharif himself made it in MLM (and still didn’t throw caution to the wind when understanding the same psychological mindset they themselves used on those downline from them). That is the irony (a lack of self-awareness).
Am I surprised? Not really. I just never expected Sharif himself to be running this as a premeditated scam because he made a crap ton of money in XanGo (he and his family [which included his parents and siblings] estimated earnings used to be published as part of those MLM rankings and they eventually exited those MLM’s and invested some of those earnings into real estate).
As I wrote previously, I did believe this was a passion project of his (just that I felt he was very much not experienced to create/run a gaming design studio and being a game director). We will find out in due time if Sharif really was that good with this “power of persuasion” where even I believed that at least with the game, he was trying to put something out. Allegations seem to imply that Sharif had a gambling problem and lost a lot of his wealth that way. Other allegations mention he was never wealthy to begin with and just acted like one (using people to whale and control the narrative in past MMO’s).
At this juncture, I don’t know what is actually factual (I find high level MLM entrepreneurs hard to believe in the first place and this drama has a whole bunch of them, plus too many whale enablers). What I do know when performing some due diligence a decade ago (when Sharif began making noise about creating his dream MMO), I saw his name (and that of his family members) in those MLM rankings (since that is like a game onto itself with various MLM’s publishing their top earners). I’m pretty sure there will be the usual suspects who will dig up whatever dirt they can (not only Sharif, but some of these other investors that forked over millions of dollars).
This is also just a general reminder; anyone having a lot of money does not mean they are actually smart, knowledgable, visionary, etc. Luck and being in the right place at the right time can often times be a larger part of it. The harder part is staying out of the limelight and not showing the rest of the world just how really stupid they are.
I need to make it clear; I’m in no way defending Sharif. He is facing some serious legal jeopardy here because there is a paper trail with the non-payment for cloud hosting as well as loans taken out. The tl;dr version is that I’m just not going to trust either side for obvious reasons and prefer to let the actual legal process reveal what are the facts and what is fiction. Discovery with depositions under oath will prove to be interesting if it gets that far. But in the mean time, I expect the internet sleuths to dig up a lot more stuff about the names we now know of publicly in this drama.
UPDATE: Sharif has filed a lawsuit against the lead investor Richard Dawson, Ryan Ogden, Theresa Fette, Aaron Bartells, TFE Games Holdings, and Intrepid Studios. Similarly, there’s a lot of unsubstantiated accusations and claims in the filing as is the case with TFE Games Holdings lawsuit against Sharif.
This is going to have to go through discovery to uncover the real facts. Someone also made an interesting observation that there could be a coordinated astroturfing campaign going on after the series of Caramanis interviews with the YouTuber NefasQS (whom I believe put money into the game). We also learn that Dawson was involved in MLM which as I mentioned up top, is all you need to know (I have no problems saying the word GRIFTER… every single one who was involved in that industry and are now part of this drama).
Like it should be obviously clear that none of this has gone through the legal discovery process yet and that the things that some are claiming is evidence, is just whatever each party is saying (to sway the court of public opinion). But some of the dogpiling does have some of the hallmarks of such an astroturfing campaign because of the same talking points (bringing up the DM’s between Caramanis and Sharif).
I have no skin in this; I just see a bunch of MLM grifters on each side and am just a spectator at this point. Kira again does a decent job of going over this lawsuit. Until depositions under oath are made, I have no desire to keep following this kind of drama.
