Moon Beast Productions managed to pull it out near the end. With less than 24 hours ago, it was still just below $400,000 ($100,000 remaining). $30k worth of pledges came in throughout the day but got kicked over the line with some large pledges near the end.

Going completely against my own past takes on Kickstarting games (never say never), this one will be my first and (likely) only game I will ever do. It’s less about their collective experience with Blizzard North and Diablo/Diablo II but more about the vision for pushing this particular genre forward.

In spite of deciding to help fund this, I still may not end up really playing this game either since I am not kidding when I say that gaming (plus a few other recent interests) has really fallen off of a cliff for me. Maybe by the time early access releases, I might be in a different frame of mind. Will see.

UPDATE (March 21, 2026): seems this was pushed over the top via pledges that one backer was not planning to honor. Not sure what options Kickstarter will give them (obviously, most Kickstarters have pledges which don’t go through but this one might have been excessively fraudulent).

UPDATE (March 28, 2026): After a few days of MBP talking with Kickstarter and getting feedback from existing backers regarding the various options, they decided to move forward. I myself wrote they should consider just moving forward since they had raised a larger percentage of the goal.

Kickstarter acknowledged that the $65K in pledges that was not honored after it seemed that it had successfully funded, did not constitute enough grounds to consider it as unsuccessful (leaving it up to MBP to make the decision). What may have also helped is additional last minute addon upgrades (before the ability to pledge to the campaign became unavailable) since the total showed over $520K before that info disappeared.

I think it is the right move in this challenging environment. Transparent communication also helped. While they had always intended to continue on even if this failed, it’s extra funding now which will still help towards EA (which they also acknowledged based on feedback from the tech demo, have their work cut out).

I think they are also being careful about inviting a bigger name (like David Brevik) to become involved simply because that could create unrealistic expectations at this particular stage.

Moon Beast Productions have been on a small blitz recently (when it looked like their Kickstarter was stalling out a few days ago). They resumed the $25 special (which ended on February 22nd) and added a few perks for each tier (promising more additions).

Additionally, the former CEO of Grinding Gear Games (Path of Exile) Chris Wilson, had the three principals of Moon Beast Productions on as guests where they answered some questions about their time at Blizzard North and the work they did on Diablo/Diablo II (as well what they’ve been doing since).

Wilson has long been enamored with Diablo/Diablo II (since it was the main reason he ended up starting his own company in order to make a spiritual successor to D2:LOD). The deal with Tencent acquiring the majority of the Grinding Gear Games in 2018, secured Wilson financially (the three original founders ended up selling their remaining stake to Tencent in 2024).

While I was familiar with Hu and Schaefer, I didn’t really know much about Shenk (and learned about his contributions); it was an overall enlightening chat to learn what their approach is for Darkhaven.

I like their rationale regarding why the modding portion being a key pillar of the design (where Shenk highlighted that a lot of the innovation in gaming came about from mods for various games and like how mods inspired new genres and titles; a good example being the Warcraft III mod that resulted in Dota where Valve created the Dota 2 sequel. Dota 2 then inspired Riot Games to create League of Legends in this faster paced MOBA genre which grew out of the original RTS roots).

They are also thinking about the challenges involved (which is what makes watching this entire interview key as to the potential this game has). They also covered the funding challenges (it seems that even publisher capital investment has effectively dried up post-COVID; something that Wilson acknowledged when he tried assisting some folks who later told him they weren’t successful with getting any investment) where they helped clarify this Kickstarter along with the very early technical alpha as being part of the data points they would like to use to highlight interest when talking with potential publishers (to also invest in seeing the game developed more fully).

That helped answer my previous question as to why they hadn’t been successful with traditional funding given their collective experience. Hu seems to be the underspoken technical genius (amongst a group of other really resourceful veterans) as he has architected this backend architecture for the game (where testers from around the world, have surprisingly mentioned they didn’t notice the usual network lag – the sole game server being used for testing online play is sitting in one of their homes in the U.S.)

Hu was also the sole developer who ended up putting out the 1.10 patch for Diablo II (this again was during a time when a lot of changes were happening at Blizzard with the large companies like Vivendi Entertainment looking to acquire them and when most of the Blizzard North principals had decided to leave the company because IIRC, Blizzard South wanted everyone there to relocate to Irvine). Hu left for Flagship shortly after this patch.

Digressing a short bit, the articulated rationale for the modding part highlights the fundamental difference that Blizzard has long had post Diablo II (like not having any modding in the remastered Diablo II Resurrected and not having even an offline single player mode in Diablo III even though early on, such a mode had originally been planned but was pulled once the real money auction house was greenlighted).

I’ve written about that before (and don’t want to revisit that stuff) since that was Blizzard Entertainment at the time culturally (a lot of the fall out in recent years has resulted in many of the key founders and executive leadership departing the company; the Microsoft acquisition of the parent holding company Activision Blizzard has for the most part, gutted that Blizzard Entertainment of old. But that again is not a rabbit hole I want to go down.

The Kickstarter itself saw a significant boost and is now well over 50% funded with 22 days (as of this writing) remaining. At this updated pace, it looks like they should reach that $500,000 all or nothing goal. They also updated the technical pre-alpha demo on the 22nd (which IMHO is critical for the fence sitters). They definitely conveyed that Kickstarter was not the preferred route and without naming names, how some projects have added to the challenge.

That was a key factor for them deciding to put this very early rough draft of the game as a proof in concept as they also realize that just simply highlighting their past credentials, doesn’t mean much. Even I previously wrote that those credentials meant something back during that time when Blizzard/Blizzard North, the gaming industry, and the type of players were the way they were.

I still don’t know if this particular game will be something that gets me back to enjoying ARPG’s again since even gaming in general, has fallen off my radar. This chat with Chris Wilson did definitely help answer a lot of questions plus also reiterate these three principals are not some fly by night folks trying to make a quick rug pull using Kickstarter.

March 13th UPDATE: With a week left, it looks like the Kickstarter has stalled again (the boost from the above was short lived).

They are going to need someone with deep pockets since they’ve run the course with the add-on’s and looking at the numbers for the non-limited tiers, the onw with the largest backing is the $80 Hero of Darkhaven. The two lowest limited time tiers ($25) having less than 1300 backers combined AND the current two lowest tiers ($30 and $40) having less than 300 combined backers, highlights one of the issues.

Since this is going to be a buy to play title (and the low end of the Kickstarter is normally the floor for where the actual release price will be; meaning at least $40 and higher but without the rewards), there is little in this campaign that is persuading the free to play demographic of buying into much of what they are trying to accomplish in this genre (and the reputations of everyone including Chris Wilson, isn’t having a huge impact).

As per their interview, the numbers for this Kickstarter plus interest level on Steam (with the wishlisting), are meant to be used for discussions with potential publishers and investors. Less than 5000 backers is problematic if trying to sell the potential angle.

We will see if they can pull it out in this next week.

Moon Beast Productions launched their demo of its Darkhaven OARPG on Steam (which as of this posting, I have yet to try). As noted before, this is the game/game studio that was formed by former Blizzard North leads/designers.

Part of this technical pre-alpha is associated with their $500,000 Kickstarter (I’ve already stated my opinion on gaming Kickstarter’s). The majority of my ire has been in the MMORPG crowdfunding space, but it also applies to a lot of these other unknown devs overpromising the “moon” (pun intended). While Moon Beast Productions falls outside of this “unknown dev” definition to a degree due to the principals involved, that doesn’t mean this game will turn out to be successful either.

This Kickstarter is an all or nothing goal to fund it to an early access launch (and will probably be easily reached by that March 20, 2026 deadline¹). This demo is naturally meant to give players and potential funders an idea of what they’ve been working on since the studio launched in 2021. It’s also risky to allow such an early pre-alpha state version to be this hands on (because gamers have a way of forgetting that).

With this studio having some known industry veterans, does that reputation give them extra “brownie” points? I suppose it does lend a bit more credibility, but I still advise throwing caution to the wind (due diligence) because as I posted about before, none of that means they or this game will end up being good/successful (Torchlight Frontiers, Echtra Games and Max Schaefer being a perfect example).

I do believe that this name recognition (especially Erich Schaefer who is the brother of Blizzard North co-founder, Max Schaefer) does help with the ARPG niche credibility though. I plan on trying to find out why they decided to fund it this way even if I can guess some of the reasons (like how the venture capital for certain niches has been drying up in recent years). Plus there has been all of this game industry fallout in recent years (stop killing games did help make players think a bit more about how awful these gaming industry executives are with their takes on monetization).

But it still does make me wonder given all of their collective experience, connections and industry contacts, how they weren’t able to secure more traditional funding (outside the original infusion of $4.5 million in seed funding for the studio/early prototype work). I realize they may not have entertained some offers (in order to maintain control of their overall vision). This is still one of those questions however which can provide more clarity on “why Kickstarter?”

Furthermore, the timing couldn’t have been worse (with the whole Ashes of Creation drama). But I get the logistics of the Kickstarter AND Steam demo being scheduled well in advance. Myself, I’m looking at this in a more compartmentalized way (the principals involved and their legacy in being part of one of the genre defining games). But as I mentioned before, that was also a function of time and place (a total team effort of the Blizzard Entertainment that existed at that time 25+ years ago).

As for the amount they are looking to raise (to carry things through to an early access launch); while this isn’t a full blown MMO, some of the persistent world features, fully destructible environments, unique biomes, and player driven environmental changes are designs within that same scope. That takes resources (the correct design experience and therefore, money).

We know the expectation for great gameplay and content is going to be on the high side (because of the Blizzard North/Diablo II tie-in’s of this studio; I just have a hard time seeing how even a stretch goal of $1.5 million will be enough to create an early access title that doesn’t feel just ok where players are writing “needs more work and has potential” (NOTE: up until the “update”, this was being written without having tried the alpha yet because I wanted to put these thoughts down first without that demo affecting my base gut feelings).

The FAQ (for the Kickstarter) answers a few questions (some key points: the plan is for it to be buy-to-play and they believe an offline mode is going to be important for the game; the demo provides a single player offline mode).

UPDATE: I started playing the tech demo (single player). For the most part, it is standard ARPG fare in terms of the combat and game play loop, but also has some added mechanics; the jump being one of them (to get out of crowd control situations, to jump over mobs as part of the combat, or to utilize the environment to jump up/over obstacles, to build/create blocks/walls from certain parts of the game world). The dynamically changing world itself is definitely interesting.

For a tech alpha demo, the current artwork and general combat/movement are ok/nothing to say wow about. It does have WASD movement and as the devs stated, the game doesn’t really have the usual pre-defined pathing that an isometric camera style game normally has (the broader freedom of movement feels good; a Mythos style ability to unlock the camera into an actual 3rd person view would be icing on the cake (some of them worked on that MMO after leaving Blizzard North to form Flagship Studio). It’s definitely barebones and rough (no surprise given its very early state) but shows promising potential.

I only hit level 4 (can’t progress past level 8) on my initial limited play (and will continue until I’ve played through what the demo offers (and then maybe try the online part). The slow leveling is meant to extend the game play given the limited demo. The loot was alright but I guess I need to hit a few more levels (unlocking more of the available skill tree and getting good items) to get a better feel for how they impact my character. They only have one class available (witch) at this time and noted they are still working on the class skill tree.

While not the fault of this demo, what’s clear is that ARPG’s have lost their appeal for me. I guess I should be even more specific; gaming in general has remained off my radar (especially after June 2024 when ArcheAge shutdown) except occasionally jumping back into these locally self-run ArcheAge emulators and less so, my TERA offline setups).

Which leads me back to whether or not their Kickstarter (even if it meets the $1.5 million stretch goal), will be sufficient for building out the game into something that would be more impactful for its early access launch (in order to draw in more players for the actual buy to play launch). I do realize the bulk of their initial seed funding probably went into creating the backend foundation (the unsexy but really important stuff if the intention is to build something great on top). Or maybe I’m just used to the cash burn rate for building out an MMO.

Judging from their FAQ, they seem confident about the capabilities they in that backend foundation to add on the features and systems that they want to (including the modding and marketplace options for that). But I guess we will need to see it in action when those systems are roughly implemented.

UPDATE: their Kickstarter has definitely slowed down after the initial day 1 hype (I initially thought they’d clear $150K in the first day). While there are still 29 days left (as of this update), this decreasing pace will not cut it. The supporter rewards are kind of underwhelming and I also understand they don’t want to push a lot of physical merchandise (because that has its own logistical challenges to create and deliver).

Releasing the demo may not have helped; as I noted, it has potential, but I don’t see how this Kickstarter amount (if they reach it) will make a huge impact for early access. If I were to put on the venture capitalist cap, a question I’d be asking is what level of funding being requested, and asking for a theoretical breakdown of how much and where it would be going into (just to hear what the priorities and how they qualify it).

I also believe that constantly associating yourself with this past legacy, is a double-edge sword (because it sets these often times, unrealistic expectations). It’s always been a larger team effort plus the before mentioned time/place of the game industry in those years, the demographic of the players, and the tech available then.

Expectations themselves are different today plus former ARPG enjoyers like myself, have moved on from the genre. The one thing I left out in my short review was how no part of the demo felt fun (a small part of any demo no matter how low the expecations, should be able to convey that). Then after the single player offline game play became severely FPS laggy (as the Necropolis event continued consuming more areas), I stopped playing (only managed to hit level 5). No reason to play a slideshow (I know optimization isn’t great given this is only a very early rough demo).

The take away is that I know some of these first impressions, are going to be lasting ones for some folks. This means the team has to figure out how to motivate the ones sitting on the fence and/or those learning about this, to fund this to its goal or figure out other ways to drum up some new level of excitement. I know overhyping something like a Kickstarter is another issue. But the initial anticipation has passed and the technical demo itself is what it is (lacking any serious wow factor).

What is also not known is what they will do if the goal isn’t met. As it currently stands, I don’t see anything they can do to generate reasonable interest without any pitch coming across as forced. And I doubt their initial plans included putting out an updated demo build to address issues highlighted. I’m thinking that if they don’t meet the goal, they will have to regroup, go through all of the feedback, and maybe reset their funding goals and timeline.

1. the first day, over $100,000 was raised but the last 2 days, it has clearly slowed down (the technical pre-alpha demo and a lot more now being wary of gaming Kickstarters after Ashes of Creation, are definitely weighing on this campaign (the comments also show some cancelled pledges). ︎

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.

UPDATE March 28, 2026: I think the jig is up for TFE Holdings. I’m thinking these MLM folks are used to lawsuits in that realm, unlike in industries where actual intellectual property rights and assets are at play. As I’ve written before, I’m no fan of Sharif, but he is looking to be the lesser of the evil in this particular case compared to this Dawson character.

While Kira also mentioned Sharif’s other motion regarding looking to have the opposition counsel disqualified (due to having a conflict of interest of sorts), wasn’t of interest to him (why he didn’t cover that). I still believe that is pertinent.

According to the American Bar Association, engaging in cases where there is a known conflict of interest can result in “disqualification from cases. Attorneys can also face professional discipline, such as reprimands, suspensions, or even disbarment.”

Bottomline, it is about ethics and trust (and it is a wise move for Sharif’s side to point this out where whatever conflict of interest this particular opposition counsel may have, will need to be responded to on the record). The TFE side has already shown this pattern of conduct that a judge may find troublesome. Having legal counsel with some form of conflict is just another thing which adds to that conduct.

As for the preliminary injunction, we will see in a few days.

As much as my previous (two) OpEd’s did not have a high opinion of company founder/CEO/game director Steven Sharif (I qualified the reasons for why in those two posts), I never did write that Ashes of Creation itself would never launch in some playable fashion (unlike other crowdsourced and even privately funded projects that end up getting rug pulled).

Why? Because this was a dream project by someone (Sharif) who had the personal funds to see it through (helped along by a successful Kickstarter) so long as the business side was managed properly. I simply didn’t feel the game (from its development gameplay) showed anything that remotely interested me early on (since part of it still felt like an MLM marketer doing the entire sales pitch).

I learned (from these articles) that it did hit Steam early access in December 2025 albeit to mixed reviews (no surprise that it was lacking in the area of the story and content). What didn’t help was not starting off with a solid foundation (requiring that refactoring mentioned back in that 2019 post I wrote).

But this is only the game part where I am giving Sharif a pass. I am not saying that maybe the business side went astray (I did note in that 2019 post about the capital expenditure on a new building to house the staff that was being hired at the time); IMHO, even I felt that it was way too much people (where you have diminishing returns on the development side compared to the salary/benefits expenditure).

Sharif himself noted in followups (after stepping down as CEO and game director) that he’ll be providing more information in a public filing (due to ongoing legal and corporate governance matters). Intrepid Studios is also being hit with labor violation lawsuits by former employees (who were all let go without the required notice period and any pay). The truth will come out in due time (via discovery unless any of this ends up being settled out of court).

IMHO, part of this does come across as Sharif biting off more than he could chew on the business side which requires different skill sets as CEO and as a game director (someone successful in the early pyramid stage of an MLM has ways of convincing themselves they can parlay that success into managing an actual business). As a former ArcheAge whale and typical gamer who believed he could do better, he did (to his credit) put some of his money where his mouth was.

I mean many of us as gamers have been highly critical of how these publishers and game developers operate in the gaming industry which has long been driven by “suits” that do not care about good game design, and mainly care about monetizing everything. Very few however are going to actual fund a studio/try to even develop an MMO (because any well adjusted person would rationally know that isn’t easy).

He willingly put up the base money (at least $30 million of his own money) to start up a studio and hire the initial designers (which included a few industry veterans) but definitely would’ve had to burn through significantly more of his personal net worth to actually deliver the lofty goals set early on. Thus despite early prognostications about how the game would be mostly self-funded, anyone familiar with how resource intensive MMORPG development is (personnel expertise and money), knew that the project would need cash infusion somewhere (whether it be public or private investors).

Repeating (what I wrote the prior two times), the criticism I had was more about gamers falling for the same hype over and over again (funding Kickstarters that end up over promising, and under delivering… or not delivering anything at all) and how someone like Sharif had to learn on the fly the ins/outs of not only creating a full fledged MMORPG, but also running an actual game design studio while wearing the game director cap. The end result is not what he expected (but not surprising to many of us who do at least understand the dynamics of the business).

But that is my current guess. I think in time, we’ll learn if it was decisions that occurred in the years from 2019 to the present which ended up contributing to the implosion of the studio/game. It does leave a further stain on Sharif’s reputation though when taken together with his past MLM history and also being a toxic whale in ArcheAge (a whale who helped contribute to how gaming executives have chosen to monetize titles with their predatory practices).

There’s a bunch of things I’ve quickly read on the Ashes of Creation subreddit which I have no idea is true or not (like him allegedly transferring his house to his wife in November 2025 to protect it from creditors); I believe the facts will come out in due time about a lot of that. I guess no one also knows what the folks who now have control of the company/its assets plan to do with it; another thing we will find out in due time.

Some background:  When I was initially approached early on by a colleague to become involved with this miracle health tonic, I did my own research (which revealed XanGo LLC was in fact an MLM) and that this miraculous Xango Juice was this concoction of different fruits including mangosteen.  I knew I would’ve been near the top of the pyramid (and thus knew the potential to make what would be, a lot of dirty money).  But my personal disdain for such schemes as well as my own personal ethics, meant there was no way that I could in good faith conscious, becoming a mouthpiece for products with claims that weren’t based on actual factual (medical and/or scientific) evidence.  The Sharif’s made a lot of money as a result (he, his mother, his siblings and their spouses showed up frequently in several MLM high earners lists making six figures a month); they later put some of that wealth into real estate and grew it even larger.  He eventually became a known P2W whale in ArcheAge (effectively being part of the problem with how the game industry has chosen to monetize a lot of these titles).  The poor state of MMO’s in recent years is why he decided to open up his own studio and create his own dream MMO that in his own words, is about “creating the greatest MMORPG”.

I have some choice words for that (going on a short tangent here) because there will NEVER be “the one MMORPG” to rule them all that so many players are hopelessly looking for.  It’s a fallacy because every player has their own set of personal preferences when it comes to aesthetics (art style) and game play choices and there is no way one single game can do it all without turning into this unfocused mess.  I like to use myself as an example of someone who has their roots in solo adventure role playing games that in an odd twist, managed to find some MMO’s that I’ve been able to sink hundreds (MapleStory 2 at 500+ hours) or thousands (Devilian and TERA) of hours into while not playing the actual meta endgame in each of them.  None of these have been issue free or close to what I would consider my own perfect MMO either (and I still don’t consider myself the typical MMO player) and likewise, aren’t considered great ones either (one of them is no longer even in existence).  I can see Torchlight Frontiers eventually being the same where the artistic design and it being an MMO-lite (where its over world doesn’t feel as vastly open compared to most MMO’s) doesn’t necessarily appeal to me BUT there are other parts that do (like the forts, or how its itemization and combat do feel like an ARPG plus lot of the other parts we haven’t seen yet like the crafting).  By the same token, the art style, the movement/combat, and many game play aspects of Ashes of Creation do not appeal to me at all; this accounts for the other reason of why I have no interest in it.  But I digress…

Despite my disinterest, avoiding seeing news about it is difficult since Sharif (using his MLM expertise) does a good job at making sure the game media covers the studio and its game.  So I knew that in recent months, the company rolled out a battle royale mode (jumping on the now overdone BR bandwagon) called Ashes of Creation Apocalypse which the company said was linked to the kickstarted MMORPG.  Negative feedback ensued since there were people who felt this was taking away focus from work on the MMO.   The company then claimed the battle royale mode was created as a means to test the games combat to which I say bullshit since they simply could’ve taken a small zone in the actual game to use as a test bed for not just the movement/combat, but also for both PvE and PvP mechanics.  But this is what I meant by not trusting someone who was successful at marketing in an MLM because they are good at creating these sort of narratives (and hopefully getting a lot to actually trust in what they are saying so they can peddle their wares to you).  What I see are convenient excuses with wanting to take a side stab at this battle royale trend which is making money hand over fist and that they didn’t expect the negative backlash.

In the meantime, the company had technical issues with their backend systems including their forum which was used as part of their account system for players;  they still haven’t been able to get their official forums back online.  Now I do realize there is going to be a different group of employees dealing with that specific backend infrastructure (versus the actual MMO development) and this letter covers the fact that he hired a new web team.  What doesn’t look good are the optics (developing and promoting this battle royale while portions of their community frontend went kaput).  Then last month, the company noted they were working on a directors letter where players were expecting there to be delays in the previously noted roadmap.

Sharif put out that letter Friday confirming there would be delays to the first alpha as they “refactor their infrastructure”.  This of course comes after several paragraphs of fluff that cover the growth of the studio including the inability to meet their hiring goals (80-100 developers) while also outgrowing their existing location (entailing the construction of a new 21,000 square foot studio).  That sort of capital investment tends to come with a hefty price tag and they haven’t even shipped a final product that can begin recouping this investment yet.  The target dev numbers are boggling because I am comparing this with studios that had smaller staffs that managed to release MMO’s; original Bluehole Studio for example with TERA and Ginno Games with Devilian before being acquired by Bluehole.  And larger number of designers and developers don’t necessarily translate into a project being completed faster unless everyone is on the same page with the goals and objectives of the design (it’s the too many cooks in the kitchen syndrome).

Finally he covers the state of the game repeating what they’ve had to say before to appease the detractors of them not focusing on their original kickstarter goals of creating an MMORPG, by now separating Ashes of Creation the MMORPG from Ashes of Creation Apocalypse, the battle royale mode.  The jist being pushed is that it was always this testing ground for their combat system but even with that narrative, people were still skeptical (though Sharif attempts to paint it as those who weren’t as informed about the game or the project, being the ones who are unclear about this objective which might be true for some, but there were still many who were original kickstarters being displeased about the general optics of the teams focus).

What he doesn’t seem to grok is the initial implementation of it still took actual resources away from what should be their priority which is what they kickstarted, the MMORPG.  And now they have no choice but to continue painting this picture of it being this testing ground while also pushing for its actual 24/7 release since it is something they can quickly leverage for the purpose of marketing and monetization.

Sharif then goes on to state that Apocalypse revealed “the need for architectural refactoring” which requires rebuilding from the ground up (basically their entire backend including account services, forums, customer service, and most importantly, the monetization platform which requires a robust implementation of the other backend systems).  “No shit Sherlock”…

For whatever reason (I’m stating this in the rhetorical sense), their initial foundation wasn’t up to snuff.  IMHO, this is what happens when you have someone who was primarily a whale, suddenly getting involved in creating something like this and leading it as “creative director” without having a solid background in the actual backend design of something the scale of an MMO.  Sure, he hired several “MMO veterans” early on and is getting OJT in what it takes to actually design them; my point is the player facing stuff was then hyped early on as opposed to maybe focusing/prioritizing some of that early money into a properly designed backend foundation.  And then most recently, part of their time was spent on creating this battle royale mode…  the lack of priorities should be telling.

Using a different analogy, you can have the most awesome looking house but if the infrastructure (electricity, water, sewer) isn’t in place and the foundation it is built on is thrown together without properly taking into account the requirements of what is going to be built on top, that awesome structure can collapse if the foundation can’t handle what sits on it nor be the most pleasant experience without connection to electricity, water, or sewage.  And that is a fundamental rule of thumb with developing these games…. the underlying plumbing (networking, business systems, database normalization, social functionality, connections to ancillary systems, etc) isn’t sexy at all but that part should be the core focus before putting the hype train into overdrive with the things that players see.

This is also a hard lesson in why many studios have found trying to be transparent a double-edged sword; people will go through everything with a fine tooth comb and pick it apart.  The last thing people want to see is another term (in this case, the word transparency) being utilized as another marketing tool (like how the terms alpha and beta test have become bastardized by a lot of game companies for marketing and PR purposes).  And it doesn’t help in this case with Sharif’s MLM background adding to the cynicism as people see the company making the same mistakes that they previously mentioned they wanted to avoid.

The basic tl;dr of this directors letter is that this refactoring will delay the first alpha which they are working hard on (Captain Obvious moment here: what else is he going to say?) but now rather than throwing out some date that they may need to change again, will leave it open ended until they are certain they will be able to meet that date.  One can then ask why this approach wasn’t taken before?  The answer to that is simple… when people are handing over money, they want some type of ball park estimate as opposed to something vague.  The kickstarter would not have been successful so he had no choice but to dangle such estimates early on.  But this is the same old over promise and under deliver aspect which is why I decided against getting involved with venture capital in gaming (since you’d have to sift through a lot of overblown proposals and sales pitches of ideas that sound good but aren’t realistic).  I again know this blog entry comes across as me wasting my time on a game that doesn’t even interest me BUT my point is the principle of why I’m skeptical of this whole kickstarter/early access shenanigan (more so when you have someone who was a good mouthpiece at promoting an MLM).

Both of those previously mentioned aspects give me pause because folks who are successful with MLM pyramid schemes like this have a way with words to where they can sell ice to an eskimo (and that is the exact feeling I get whenever I hear Sharif speaking).  And I also have pause when someone who was a huge whale in ArcheAge (supporting/perpetuating Trion’s poor cash grabbing decisions) is now designing their own game where they know full well the psychology of the gaming whale.

Additionally, when I see Kickstarter/Early Access, I pretty much turn the other way.  I have patience to wait until there are more concrete designs and systems in place.  Last Epoch (when I first brought it up) and Wolcen (when I purchased it on sale once more systems were in place) were rare exceptions but I also haven’t really delved into detail my actual ongoing thoughts since they are subject to changes.  Discussing Bless Online was different because it was only hiding under the Early Access label.

As for AoC, I did see a lot of the early cinematic trailers as well as gameplay from PAX and know that despite the aggressive schedule they are pursuing, that it has a long way to go.  There are much better funded studios that take years to fully flesh out combat systems once everything is in place where it has to mesh with the other design concepts.

Their use of purchasable UE assets for those early demos weren’t an issue since I just saw that as a starting point to have something to show.  But it also doesn’t do much to differentiate the world environment or the actual aesthetics the company might be going for.  Similarly, the scripted combat sequences and visuals also didn’t grab me.  The combat actually came across as too slow for my own liking.  Simply put, most everything led me to have this feeling of indifference about this title (it pretty much seems to get most of its hype from backers who tend to congregate on a few MMO sites).

The conceptual designs sound interesting but coding all of that is obviously non-trivial.  The same goes for class skills and balancing/tuning it with all of those designs.  The games first actual playable content was at PAX West in September 2017 and there were mixed reactions to the class metas and their combat.  I know they have since progressed a bit more in their development and the studio attended a few other industry shows to promote the game, but it is still something I am not interested in and probably won’t be.

Ok, I normally do not like to talk about Kickstarters because I am personally not a huge fan of crowd funded game development.

I’m making an exception in this case just because there haven’t been that much actual new developments in the ARPG genre.  There is a playable demo (pre alpha) which as with most early versions, I won’t critique.  It is based on the Unity engine though (which usually has these pathing issues when it comes to movement and combat).

The pre-alpha (build 0.4.5.2 as of this entry) demo offers a quick preview.  I will say this, compared to other early versions of games that I have played that were based on Unity, I didn’t encounter the usual clunky movements where it was easy to get stuck on the environment (a common problem while I was play testing FIVE: Champions of Canaan back in 2016 for example).  The combat itself feels similar to what exists in both Grim Dawn and Wolcen (which is in early access).  In other words, for an early demo, it looks promising.

Site: https://lastepochgame.com/

The developers said this will be online only (like Diablo III and Path of Exile) in order to discourage exploits and cheating.

Opinion:  When it comes to what is mostly a single player instanced game (like what ARPG’s tend to be albeit with limited co-op), being completely online only has become a negative.  Besides the DRM/anti-piracy factor, I see no reason for not having an offline mode as well.  As I’ve written before, it can be just like StarCraft II’s offline mode where you cannot earn any achievements.  And if the online aspect has features like leaderboards, then offline would not have that either.  Sometimes, I just want to hack and slash without having lag/latency related jitter while I am soloing.

Update: the developers have a FAQ which states there will be multiplayer online, single player offline, and LAN play.  I personally have no problems with this setup.


Note:  As far as traditional ARPG’s go, I’ve actually become somewhat disengaged and have been losing interest in this genre because I’ve been finding the isometric/fixed camera view a huge limitation when it comes to the exploration potential of these games.  That particular realization became apparent as I played through Grim Dawn and Wolcen (both have the ability to rotate the camera BUT are still limited by the quarter view of the environment).