Ashes of Creation, a kickstarter MMO that recently imploded after it was cancelled and its dev team was laid off, has been revealed to be a hotbed of corporate drama and potential embezzling.
First, some context: Back in 2017, Ashes of Creation became one of the most successful Kickstarter projects ever, accruing $3.2 million on the site. Nine whole years later, in late January of 2026, it was formally announced by creative director Steven Sharif that he and other senior leadership had resigned, which was then followed by a mass layoff.
Late last week a series of videos by YouTuber NefasQS, who has been in contact with investor Jason Caramanis, revealed allegations by the investor that Sharif had been engaging in corporate misconduct, bleeding money intended for the company into his own personal expenditures.
Caramanis wrote in an email: “All I can say about Steven and [his husband] John is that they are BOTH insane pathological narcissists that convinced people they were fucking ballers with mega millions in the bank when he had NOT put one penny into the company.”
The claims alleged by Caramanis include (but are certainly not limited to) giving Sharif a loan of $1 million which he then paid back to his mother, a $60 million deal with iDreamSky that apparently fell through (which saw Sharif scrambling to pay developers) and a mansion that Caramanis states was paid for via company funds.
Caramanis also alleges that later cash from the Steam launch was apparently being used to pay said off instead of covering payroll. All of this allegedly led to a debt that was apparently somewhere between $100 and $140 million, based on NefasQS’s own math and Caramanis’ claims.
This, naturally, conflicts with the statement by Sharif when the MMO shut down that the “board began directing actions that I could not ethically agree with or carry out”.
This is not to say that Caramanis is a saint himself, making a lot of his money via multi-level-marketing MLM company Jeunesse Global (you can see a video of him waxing lyrical about Jeunesse in 2023 here), boasting the title “Imperial Diamond Director”. This is confirmed in NefasQS’s video itself, though the YouTuber does state that he’s “since branched” out into other business ventures and investments.
Essentially, this whole thing’s a gnarled mess, and while nothing’s been substantiated in a court of law just yet, Legal Mindset (Andrew Esquire) a YouTuber and corporate attorney, believes there’s “there’s a very high likelihood of piercing the corporate veil … you’ve got possible claims for fraudulent inducement, breach of implied contract and unjust enrichment for those kickstarter backers”.
