Ashes of Creation Scandal Deepens as Alleged Intrepid Studios Expense Ledger Goes Public

The Ashes of Creation fallout keeps getting messier. YouTuber NefasQS has now published what he claims is the complete Intrepid Studios general ledger, covering 2015 all the way through to 2026, and the numbers, if accurate, tell a pretty grim story.

NefasQS published the full spreadsheet online and uploaded a video walking through the details. He describes it as painting "a troubling picture of a company that was on the threshold of financial death at multiple points in its history." According to the data, the studio allegedly spent $220,066 on DoorDash, $595,098 on Amazon orders, $48,568 on antiques, $21,346 on Magic: The Gathering cards, $21,000 on a personal chef, $15,981 on movie theatre tickets, $8,717 on plants, and, somehow, $2,200 on hotdogs.

That last one is going to live rent-free in people's heads for a while.

There's also the matter of $81,166 allegedly paid to Gore Oil, a company that appears to be the deed owner of the $4.9 million San Diego mansion purchased by former CEO Steven Sharif and his husband John Moore back in 2020. NefasQS further alleged that both Moore and Sharif's compensation nearly doubled in 2024, with Moore reportedly jumping from around $245,864 to $476,738 and Sharif from $207,922 to $396,768.

The ledger also apparently shows something more fundamental: without repeated cash injections from investors and creditors, the studio would have gone bankrupt multiple times over. NefasQS described a pattern of money coming in and then going right back out again, often the same day, labelled as "shareholder loans" in the QuickBooks data. He also claims that over $12 million taken out from Intrepid Studios remains unaccounted for based on the available data.

Sharif has hit back. In a statement to Kotaku, he said NefasQS "has been fed false and defamatory information by individuals with an axe to grind" and accused the YouTuber of acting as "a mouthpiece to advance a narrative that drives clicks and views, with disregard for basic journalistic standards." He also denied any misappropriation of Kickstarter funds, calling the claims about a lavish lifestyle "categorically false."

Worth noting: NefasQS himself admits the ledger does not show the full picture of Intrepid's finances. He says the information was "verified with a plethora of sources and interviews with former employees," but has not disclosed where the ledger itself came from. As Massively Overpowered pointed out, if the records are legitimate and relevant to the ongoing legal dispute, they would likely surface through official court filings in due course.

The Bigger Picture

This is just the latest chapter in a collapse that has been unravelling publicly since late January. Sharif resigned as Creative Director citing ethical objections to decisions made by the Board. Senior staff followed. Then came the WARN Act notices, affecting 210 employees, 123 of whom were based in California. A formal notification was issued on January 31, and an update from a studio director confirmed the entire development team had been laid off without notice and without their January paychecks.

Valve pulled Ashes of Creation from Steam shortly after, having launched as a $50 Early Access title only weeks earlier, quickly accumulating an Overwhelmingly Negative rating. Dexerto reports the game sold somewhere between 220,000 and 320,000 copies and had previously raised $3.27 million on Kickstarter back in 2017.

Sharif has since claimed a first legal victory against the Board of Directors and their affiliated entity TFE Games Holdings LLC, with a San Diego court issuing a temporary restraining order in his favour. He has accused the Board of "breaches of fiduciary duty," trade secret violations, and an "unlawful and manufactured insider foreclosure" designed to seize the studio's IP.

Meanwhile, the video remains live at the time of writing. NefasQS noted in a pinned comment that someone had already filed a privacy complaint against it, and that his Reddit account had also been reported. There have also been reports of people being banned from the Ashes of Creation Discord for sharing a link to the video.

Whether the ledger holds up to scrutiny or not, the court proceedings will likely be where the real accounting happens.