Ashes of Creation's Founder SCAMMED His Own Brother!?

Steven Sheree is my younger brother. He is approximately 10 years younger than I am.

Steven is the founder, CEO, and creative director of Intrepid Studios Incorporated, the company developing the video game commonly known as Ashes of Creation. Steven and I were not close growing up, and our relationship in adulthood has been driven in significant part by Steven seeking financial support from me.

Over a period spanning multiple years, Steven made repeated representations to me regarding the status, timing, and commercial prospects of Intrepid Studios and Ashes of Creation. These representations included, but were not limited to, the following.

A. That the launch of Ashes of Creation was eminent. The specific timeline Steven represented varied over the years. At times, he stated the launch was approximately 1 year away. At other times, approximately 6 months away, but the consistent posture was at launch was just around the corner. Steven made representations of this character in substantially similar form repeatedly over a period of years. Each time the represented launch window passed without launch, Steven would offer a new explanation and again represent that launch was imminent.

B. That upon launch, Ashes of Creation would generate hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

C. That Ashes of Creation would be a billion dollar game.

On occasions when I was present, I personally observed Steven making representations of substantially the same character to other individuals he was pitching, including the same imminent launch posture, the same revenue framing and the same valuation framing. These were Steven's own representations made by Steven directly in his own words. I did not make any such representations, did not solicit funds for Steven or Intrepid and was not involved in raising capital for Steven or Intrepid.

Steven is a persuasive and confident communicator. The polish of his explanations, the specificity of his timelines, and the confidence of his projections gave people who had no independent means of verifying the underlying state of the company a reasonable basis to credit what he was saying. As his older brother, I had no reason at the time to doubt him. The same representations were made repeatedly across multiple years with the same confident framing and the same imminent launch posture. While the underlying timelines never materialized and the financial projections were never realized.

On June 30th, 2020, Steven executed a promissory note in favor of 310 Nutrition in the principal amount of up to $1.5 million bearing interest at 5% per annum. The 310 note, the Steven signed the 310 note in his individual capacity as the borrower. The 310 note was not signed by Intrepid Studios on behalf of Intrepid Studios or by Steven in any representative capacity. It was a personal obligation of Steven Sharif.

Pursuant to the 310 note and the subsequent advances, 310 Nutrition extended credit to Steven over time. As of December 31st, 2024, the outstanding principal balance is $1.1 million. The advances and accrued interest are reflected in 310 Nutrition's financial records. Total interest accrued at 5% per annum through December 31st, 2024 is $255,835.9. 310 Nutrition has reported and paid taxes on this accrued interest, even though Steven has never actually paid that interest to 310 Nutrition.

Despite Steven having signed a 310 note in his individual capacity, Steven has in conversations with me and others repeatedly characterized these advances as having been made to Intrepid Studios. That characterization is contradicted by the document Steven himself signed. The 310 note identifies Steven Sharif as the borrower, not Intrepid Studios.

In other dealings between Steven and me, Steven has refused to execute documentation that would crystallize his obligations. By way of example, in connection with the Ashes of Creation merchandise program, over an extended period, Steven and his team directed my company to order Ashes of Creation branded inventory on the basis of repeated assurances from Steven that he would actively promote the merchandise to the Ashes of Creation community and would execute a written agreement formalizing my company's role. In reliance on those assurances, my company ordered approximately $300,000 in branded inventory at Steven's direction. Steven and his team subsequently did not promote, sell, or meaningfully support the sale of that inventory to the Ashes of Creation community despite repeated expressions of community interest in such merchandise. The inventory remains largely unsold and is currently sitting in my company's warehouse. Steven has not reimbursed or otherwise addressed the cost.

Furthermore, I separately incurred approximately $10,000 in legal fees to have my attorney, Jordan Hamburger, prepare a contract that would have established my company as the exclusive merchandise seller for Ashes of Creation. Steven and his team participated in the drafting process. Once the contract was finalized, Steven refused to sign it and ceased meaningfully engaging on the subject.

In each of these instances, the pattern has been the same. Steven actively encourages a course of conduct, induces expenditure or commitment on my part, and then refuses to execute the documentation that crystallizes his corresponding obligations.

I thought things couldn't get worse or weirder in the Ashes of Creation legal debacle. Again, again, again, again, of course, again, I'm wrong on that count because this past week, in an answer to the court to the unusual 400-page motion for receivership where Steven Sharif, other investors, and former Intrepid Studios executive employees shared their story. The board has come out with their own exhibits and declarations that not only contested the claims made by Steven about financial coercion or physical intimidation, but added more context to the text messages he shared. A source had told me that the board was preparing over 1,200 pages of exhibits and documents. But the court and the judge seemed to not want any more than 40 pages. And given the recent statement issued to our channel by attorney Samuel Schwarz, perhaps a different lawsuit will have to be filed in regards to the many allegations of coercion, embezzlement, intimidation, and all that juicy stuff made by Steven or by the board. Uh, it's interesting to also note other people have reached out to me about one of Steven Sharif's recent requests for what a court-appointed receiver should do if the judge decides to grant him a receivership in whatever legal and financial capacity. I'm not a legal expert nor a lawyer, and I'm not sure if a receiver can do the following. But Steven is apparently requesting that a receiver take legal actions against any party that's harming the value of Intrepid's assets, including but not limited to public disparagement of Intrepid and its assets and associated parties, along with public disclosure of company confidential information. Now, I can certainly see why other people are interpreting this to be alluding to me as well, considering we've done interviews with former developers. We've interviewed Jason Caramez, a private chef, former volunteer moderators, and so on. We've published a ledger that's pissed off everybody, as I'm told, which is potentially being redacted publicly in the exhibits that are being shared in this video. But I fail to understand how I would be harming the value of Intrepid's assets. Uh, so let me know what you guys think about this down in the comments below. I would opine perhaps it's not our coverage that's harming Intrepid's value or assets, but Steven Sharif banning actual customers who paid anywhere between $40 to $10,000 into Ashes of Creation from the official Ashes escort server and subreddit.

I'm glad that Tim Sharif is finally speaking up considering I had talked to him only off the record after Jason Caramez mentions Tim had been scammed by his own brother. And I think the explanations about the Ashes of Creation merchandise offered by Tim makes a whole lot of sense and finally completes that part of this massive puzzle we've had about if Tim Sharif was in on Steven's plans or why a nutrition company owned by Steven's older brother had Ashes merchandise, which again, as far as I'm aware, was very desired by the Ashes community, but correct me if I'm wrong.

In the rest of this video, I will again be summarizing the most important points and aspects of the declarations and exhibits made by the board just as I did for Steven Sharif's, Jacob Bucler's, Brian Langford's, and Jason Zimmerman stories against the board. If you don't want to watch this video and look at the documents yourselves, as always, the link is in the video description below. And just to continue my transparency efforts, I've reached out to investors Karen Barco, Tom Alkazen, and Zach Schuster, who filed declarations in support of Steven Sharif for comments or interviews, and I've yet to hear back from them as of the publication of this video.

Context-wise, I found three things personally interesting to me in regards to the declarations and exhibits of the board members. First, when the board members are establishing their credibility and their personal backgrounds and professional backgrounds. While Robert Dawson is forthcoming about being of an MLM background pertaining to the company Janness, also mentioned by Jason Caramez in past livestreams, Ryan Ogden in his declaration going over his impressive resume strangely doesn't mention that he was explicitly involved in MLM origin. Perhaps this is a way of saving public face given that there's so many eyes from the gaming industry and just the general public on this legal drama. But it also showcases, given what we know about the other investors that have not yet made their appearance in this legal fight, it seems so far to be a mixed bag of individuals with varying backgrounds in either MLM or non-MLM ventures that were involved in funding Ashes of Creation.

Second, there's a slight nod of acknowledgement, I feel, in these filings made by the board to the veracity of Steven Sharif's claims that yes, the board was intent on cutting costs any way possible, even laying off employees due to the company's insolvency without allegedly following labor laws in regards to the PTO compensation. However, if Steven Sharif's 400-page motion for a receivership was intended to take the whole ship down, the board's sharing of text messages and emails showcasing Steven's personal involvement in those same board discussions of cost cutting and allegedly being fine with layoffs is them saying, "Hey, if we're going down, then we're taking Steven down with us."

Third, while Douglas Bartell's, Ryan Ogden, Robert Dawson, Theresa Fett, and Steven's own brother, Tim Sharif, made declarations, we did not see Aaron Bartell's, who is now the subject of scrutiny due to a Steven exhibit sharing Aaron discussing not giving employees PTO and skirting labor laws, file a declaration. Perhaps this was a strategic legal move by the legal representation. And if you're looking to jump into this whole thing at this point without having watched any of the other videos, I strongly recommend you don't because you'll be missing a whole bunch of context and information. So definitely check out the previous videos.

Douglas Bartell starts his declaration saying he's a CFA with degrees from the University of Notre Dame with an MBA in consulting and finance along with a BBA in accountancy and a BA in computer applications with decades of experience in multi-million dollar firms including Ernst & Young, IBM, and American Management Systems. The only thing that would complete Douglas Bartell's resume here is a BBL. Douglas claims that he was brought on by the board of directors of TFE/Intrepid Studios to help clean up the financial records of the Ashes of Creation developer. He was indeed appointed as interim CEO as testified to by Steven Sharif and his side. And then he states here specifically that he had his title changed to restructuring agent after Steven Sharif resigned on January 19, 2026 and after the company got shut down. Like one of the professional accountants I had brought in to review the general ledger this channel published recently, Douglas Bartell says he had misgivings about QuickBooks being used as the accounting software for Intrepid, raising an eyebrow at how multiple bank and credit card accounts were not fully integrated into the accounting system. Douglas claims that accounts where millions of dollars were transferred to, as well as credit cards accumulated hundreds of thousands of dollars of transactions, were not integrated into the financial books and records, further stating that no proper documentation was made for such transactions. Douglas lays the blame on the former CFO, John Moore, also Steven Sharif's husband, and even had a catty remark where he says, "In my experience, even smaller organizations typically implement dual approval or review processes for financial transactions which did not include their spouse." Douglas continues to say, as corroborated by the data point of the ledger we the public have, that the suspicious withdrawals made by John Moore to his Bank of America account ending in 6009 abruptly stopped after John Moore was replaced as CFO. Douglas makes mention of the current financial standing of Intrepid, which of course is redacted for the public's eyes and makes you wonder if Intrepid Studios has less than $10 in cash or $10,000 in cash.

Ryan Ogden in his declaration establishes his background as an actual certified public accountant or CPA with a master's degree in accounting and a background in the Big Four public accounting which alludes to the four largest professional services networks such as Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PWC. Again, he makes no explicit mention of his time as CFO at Janness, at best saying he was a CFO at a billion-dollar company. I do think a funny thing here is after listing his impressive credentials, Ryan wraps it up saying he's also a small business owner. Kind of like if an astronaut that's done spacewalks came back to Earth and said they're also selling homemade rock candy on Etsy.

Ryan Ogden continues to say that he invested approximately $1.6 million into Intrepid Studios and National Creation. He claims his efforts as a finance employee starting in October 2024 was blocked at every step of the way by Steven Sharif at Intrepid Studios. Ryan recounts a bizarre episode in which he flew out to the Intrepid office in San Diego. But when he got there, Steven Sharif did not allow Ryan to enter the office and in fact was isolated from the other employees and had to work from a hotel room. Ryan purports that now he knows Steven did all this because Steven didn't want anyone else to know there were other investors or decision makers behind Ashes of Creation. Ryan was nevertheless asked to guide the company through an independent financial audit and claims the audit was never completed because Steven refused to give an accounting of the personal funds he and his husband had taken out of the company. Ryan continues to state that Steven did everything he could to prevent Ryan from accessing company systems, information, and employees that took months after numerous requests and follow-ups before Ryan finally gained access to payroll data, tax returns, accounting records, and bank accounts. Compared to Douglas Bartell's, Ryan Ogden more firmly states that there was indeed commingling of personal and business funds under Steven's leadership, affirming that there was no board in place and no independent financial controls during 2024 and onwards until October 2025. Ryan lists some of the commingling examples, which again corroborates our so-called fake ledger we published recently, listing a personal Cadillac Escalade, luxury vacations, a personal chef, and house payments on the Santa Fe mansion. As late as December 2025, a year and 3 months after Ryan started working with the company, he still had no access to Gusto, one of the payroll services many companies use.

Ryan shares some text messages and emails which are a little tense, awkward, and a little bit funny. Steven Sharif on April 7th, 2025 sends bicep curl emoji, prayer emoji. "Ryan, please send me the routing account numbers and verify the account name for the Pathway Intrepid Studios Incorporated account so I can change the Gusto default bank account to it. There is a true-up tax withdrawal that is expected to hit tonight, I believe, for about $20,000." Ryan replies, "What is the issue with getting me access to the financial side of Gusto?" Steven replies, "You have full administrator access. I sent the above screenshots of Gusto back office showing that your account had the permissions checkbox added. What is the issue with sending me the above info?" Ryan then replies, "The issue is Rob wants me handling the finance side of things." Steven then says, "What does it have to do with me updating Gusto's default bank account?" Ryan then states, "Banking is a finance activity. I know you understand this. Let's do a call with Rob and get on the same page. You free?" Steven then says, "I just tried to call him. Lol. No answer. Feels like we aren't playing on the same team. Unsure why."

On May 28th, 2025 from Ryan Ogden to Steven Sharif. Subject: Money Owed from Steven/John. "Steven, I've gone through every transaction in QuickBooks and summarized everything in the attached workbook. It shows a net outflow of a little over a million to you and John rather than $4 million inflow. Can you please take a look at this and let me know if I've missed anything or not considered anything? I'm happy to walk you through it. I think it would be helpful. Our objective is not to push any agenda or take anything away. We just have to get these records to match the actual transactions so that we can get through an audit. Obviously, this is highly time-sensitive. It affects the information that both Teresa and Square Annex is are asking for. Please help me address this ASAP. Thanks, Ryan." Then again in the second email on July 10th, 2025 to Steven, "Resending this so that you can investigate. Thanks, Ryan." Again, in a third email from Ryan to Steven, "Sending for the third time with the same attachment."

Ryan makes more damning claims against Steven, saying that Steven had initially been very cooperative with the board by participating in meetings, submitting agenda items, responding to board directives, and even proposing restructuring plans. What's particularly interesting will also be brought up later in the form of Square Annex and Riot Games, yet again, is the allegation that Steven and the board consulted with ARM and Associates as corroborated by a previous exhibit in a different filing. 43 prospective investors were approached to ARM's process of finding possible investors for Ashes of Creation. And all 43 investors said that Ashes had taken twice as long to develop as it should have and it consumed twice as much capital as comparable projects and that not a single investor of the 43 entities approached decided on committing any money to Intrepid or Ashes. The final allegation made by Brian Ogden, which will be further supported by the upcoming Theresa Fett declaration, is that it was ultimately Steven's fault that employees refused to cooperate with the board or provide access to systems after Steven Sharif resigned because Steven had concealed the existence of investors in the board of directors from employees. Now, I think this allegation is more referring to the executive employees such as Jacob Bucler, Jason Zimmerman, and Brian Langford. A few of the non-executive employees I talked to have stated that they would first like to get paid what's owed to them before they gladly cooperate with members of the board. So I don't think the concealment of the board alone would be the reason why most of the 200-some developers would not be prone to helping out.

In her declaration, Theresa Fett introduces herself as a tax attorney with a successful background in mergers and acquisitions, financial structuring, corporate exits which are relevant to her declaration and claims. Teresa drops a little bit of a bombshell here, saying that she was not brought in by Robert Dawson, Jason Caramez, or other MLM background investors. Teresa claims she was brought in personally by Steven Sharif to assist with Intrepid Studios and that she is not a hostile outsider, as implied by Steven's recent filings. Apparently, Steven managed to convince Teresa to give up $1.5 million of her dollars starting in January 2022 while getting Aaron Bartell's to invest approximately $5 million. She points out the ridiculousness of Steven's claim that she conspired against a company she was personally recruited to help for, personally invested her money into, and even had tried to extensively help look for buyers and investors for the project. She even says that she was the mediator of disputes between other investors and Steven Sharif. Reiterating what Riot and Douglas have said, Teresa states that the board did not formally exist until October 2025 and that Steven and his husband John Moore were the only C-level officers serving as CEO, COO, CFO, and CTO.

Teresa goes a bit more into detail about the crazy delusional numbers that many of us gamers have seen leaked from the prior court filings pertaining to Ashes of Creation's revenue projections including a $700-plus million dollar revenue projection for the year of 2023 that was recently requested to be sealed by Steven Sharif for the public's eyes. Teresa mentions that Steven had texted her an Alpha 2 launch date was aimed for August 2024 and that would somehow generate $24 to $45 million within two months of that launch. Teresa accuses Steven of making these wild projections to induce continued investments of money from her and the others. She specifies that she also looked over the available books and records and found that new investor capital was also used in part to repay earlier related party loans to Steven's family members and friends. While Steven himself extracted over $10 million in personal transfers from company funds besides Ryan Ogden, Steven had also approached her and one of the Bartells to help with an audit and that Steven was unable to present any evidence that certain payments constituted valid business expenses. In solidarity with Ryan's declaration, Teresa states that the transactions were recorded by an accountant hired by Mr. Sharif and managed by him and his husband. And again, there was no board in place during this period. Another damning allegation that seems to lie on our previous video covering not just the ledger, but other records we procured from 2023 and 2024. Teresa claims Steven and John raised both their salaries to $480,000 per year in 2024, while the company was almost unable to make payroll happen for employees multiple times. And that bizarrely this was done because Steven told Teresa later in 2025 he needed a raise since he gave up majority equity to Robert Dawson back in August 2025. Later, Teresa had benchmarked these numbers and found out for her company, Intrepid Stats, the actual range would have been $250,000 to $400,000 with a 2 to 3% equity kicker and exit bonus for Steven as CEO.

Another big claim made by Teresa, which is contested by the Intrepid executive employees such as Jacob Bucler and Brian Langford, is that the board was going to have a plan to lay off employees, 100 employees with an actual restructuring plan to treat departing employees with dignity. But that Steven's constant delaying of the layoffs and insubordination, including only laying off 10 of the 100 proposed employees, cost the company hundreds of thousands of dollars per week, which may have caused severe issues in January when [ __ ] hit the fan. Teresa then disputes Steven's claim that the board unilaterally imposed layoffs and that Steven was an active knowing participant in implementing layoffs, alleging he was not objecting to the layoffs themselves. Teresa also says she had presented the hard numbers and data directly to Steven, showing the company was insolvent and couldn't meet basic obligations such as payroll. Apparently, Steven told her that the solution was that Robert Dawson would provide even more money and that he treated Robert Dawson's personal wealth as though it were a corporate funding facility to which the company had an ongoing right of access. Teresa states that Steven's characterization of Dawson as a billionaire who simply chose not to fund the company because he did not care about the people is false as he had been the one who had invested the most money and had been the one to repeatedly fund emergency payroll shortfalls at the board's request despite being unwilling and sometimes unable to at the level Steven had demanded. Teresa then finally adds more context to the information Jason Caramez had been sharing publicly, that Steven was unable to obtain the equity terms he demanded as a condition of continuing as CEO and that he did not resign gracefully or act in the company's best interest. She alleges Steven notified Commerce West Bank of the foreclosure proceedings knowing Commerce West Bank would seize the company's funds. And again, a point of debate here by the other side. Teresa states that the board has always intended to honor the bank's loan and had deliberately delayed formal notice to the bank to preserve the company's ability to make payroll for its employees, assumingly from the Steam funds. Teresa alleges that Steven was not only motivated by him not getting the equity he wanted from the board, but that Commerce West Bank actually held $1.3 million in escrow from the sale of his personal residence. The Santa Fe mansion, which had been pledged as collateral for the loan, meaning his $1.3 million would have been at risk if the board had used the Steam funds to make payroll for Intrepid employees.

For the last set of text messages, Steven in his own filing shared a total of five text messages exchanged between him and Theresa Fett. Well, Theresa Fett has decided to give the whole conversation or at least more of the conversation to add a bit more context to what was being said. Three text messages before the beginning of Steven's text message sharing. Steven says, "He asked me if it was true that I was unwilling to have any board oversight. I said it wasn't. If you want to negotiate a healthy transition, I don't think lying is going to be helpful in that process. Teresa or T-Money replies, "Steven, I don't think it's healthy for us to go back and forth, and you've threatened litigation to me as well. In the document, your attorney struck all provisions of board's oversight. Now, perhaps you just meant to strike that to vest today, and I understood wrong. I stayed above board with Brian and did not badmouth you in any way, and have no plans to. I would like to move forward and help these employees get to a good place and I personally would like to go back to my life and I've given you the benefit of the doubt many times. I would appreciate you doing the same before you call me a liar and it's probably best that we just let attorneys handle from here. I truly wish you the best and tried my hardest to help. Now my only interest is in helping the company and its employees move forward." Correct. Steven replies, "Those are struck best today. I never an issue with a board oversight. It's in my original email titled conditions and the equity framework email. I just want to say this is exactly why the board trying to sneak one past the bank was a terrible decision to make. Instead of this elaborate foreclosure strategy, someone should have done the normal and right thing and just reached out to the bank and asked for some grace and an extension. Now the situation is [ __ ]. Sorry, I'm not trying to be rude, but this is one of many damaging missteps the board chose to take that puts us in this precarious situation." Teresa replies and says, "Stephen, I have so many things to say, but will refrain. I am tired of pouring my good energy into bad." Steven then says, "I am not mad at you. I'm just sorry that this situation is the way it is. I'm appreciative of your attempts putting in good energy. Just frustrated." Teresa then says, "Stephen, my point is simply this. Notifying the bank would naturally accelerate any seizure notice that limited optionality. Perhaps there could have been some room to negotiate. Perhaps there still is, and we intend to explore that. I don't see a clear date on the notice, so it's hard to even anchor timing. What I do know is that the loss of access and passwords and the back and forth didn't help stabilize the situation. There are a lot of moving parts here and I don't think it's productive for anyone to decide blame. The focus should be on getting clarity and a workable path forward. And believe me, everyone feels the heaviness of the situation. At least our small board of directors and you have a lot to lose." Steven then texts back saying, "It was probably sometime around January 18th, day, meaning the bank sent me a default notice by email. And Jason said he received a FedEx at the office. Asked for it while you were there. I bet it was Commerce. Steam confirmed I sent them a request for the password Friday of last week. Their payment goes out today. They sent me the password reset yesterday and I immediately sent it to you. Me having the password or not would have not have made the difference. I am sure here. You can confirm that likely by checking the date on the notice of default in the FedEx. I assume that is a procedural requirement for any seizure actions. Not trying to be adversarial, but it's sounding like the account login issues are being blamed for this when in reality it wouldn't have made a difference." Teresa then says, "If they sent it January 18th, it's no one's fault. It would have happened regardless of you or Rob. Did you tell us about the default notice?" Teresa asks. Steven says, "I didn't see it because they sent it to my personal email, not the business email I use. Jason got a FedEx on January 24th, but I'm not in San Diego. You need to ask him for it while there. I don't know if that is it or not. Could be Kilroy." Teresa replies, "Okay, on my way to office. Stand by today. I'm not sure if they want to call you, but do we all need to figure this out?" Steven answers, "K. Also, I was able to secure insurance for Intrepid Studio so that people can be covered during transition to new and also so people who are laid off can have Cobra. There's no upfront cost to it, but someone from my there's no upfront cost to it, but someone from the company will need to approve it. I sent it to Brian." Teresa asks, "Do you give the info to Doug?" Douglas Bartell's. Steven then answers, "No, Doug doesn't respond to me so I have to give to Brian to give to you guys at meeting." Teresa answers, "Please send to Doug, Brian and everyone are totally not being helpful. Send to me. Brian probably being Brian Langford."

Finally, Teresa makes mention of the reputational harm that Steven has committed by making defamatory and grave allegations against her and the others, which may allude to more lawsuits coming in the future, as she mentions that Steven's claims have been published, circulated online, and amplified through social media and gaming press coverage. She backs up Robert Dawson, saying she has never seen him engage in any act of violence, threat, or of physical harm, or aggression towards Steven or any other person, and that Dawson had demonstrated patience throughout years of broken promises, missed milestones, and escalating financial losses.

The final legal declaration comes from the head honcho himself, Robert Dawson, who has indeed been the subject of myriad videos and discussions online since the implosion of Intrepid Studios and Ashes of Creation. There seems to be discrepancy at times in the declarations or exhibits on how much Robert Dawson invested into Intrepid. In his declaration, he states he's invested approximately $78 million into Intrepid, but other estimates or prior statements made by other individuals have his investments at over $90 million. Regardless, Robert Dawson also gives his background as an attorney and board member for other companies, including Janness. He also claims that it was Steven Sharif, not him, who wanted Robert's initial investment backdated because Steven had brought in other investors at unrealistically higher valuations before bringing Robert in and Steven needed to reconcile his discrepancy. Robert seemingly acknowledges Steven's bizarre derision of Robert Dawson in a past filing as not a gamer, admitting that he is not and have never been a professional video game developer and he had no prior experience in the gaming industry, going as far as to say he never desired to be a major shareholder in a gaming company and that he did not want to continue making loans due to a lack of desire and liquidity as Steven wanted.

Robert mentions Riot Games, developer of League of Legends and one of the largest gaming companies in the world, as Steven had represented Riot Games wanting to get all up in Intrepid Studios' business. And now, Robert is alleging Steven had misrepresented or fabricated Riot Games' purported interest in getting into bed with Intrepid. Further stating that no legally binding agreement or really anything happened with Riot Games, which aligns with Trindir's recent statement about only having discussions with Intrepid Studios about Ashes of Creation.

In a text message sent to Robert Dawson and Jason Caramez on November 16th, 2022, Steven says, "Just finished the second meeting with Riot. A lot to digest. We are in a very strong position. They expressed that they currently have about 60 developers assigned to their internal MMO project. It is in its infancy and they have another 450ish developers across different content teams and another 300 devs and studios in Sydney, Australia that are ready and waiting. They want to scrap their project and make Ashes a red development focus for Riot. They are primarily interested in me as a leader. They expressed over and over most of the meeting today was around my game design philosophy, our development approach, pipelines, workflows, features, and schedules. We discussed designs and philosophy. We discussed Riot's culture and core values. Finally, we touched on our expectations from a valuation perspective. If we were to consider an acquisition, investment or publishing agreement. Again, they stressed the desire to acquire but want to be part of this in any way. I remained very tight-lipped. They were pretty close to the chest on valuation, though they once again stated, 'Based on where you're currently in development and how successful you've been in building your community and pre-orders, a high 9 figure valuation makes sense.' They were obviously posturing here and they became visibly more nervous during this part of the conversation. They finished this part of the meeting by saying, 'We want to explore this further at our next meeting.' My read on this, if that is their opening commentary, they will go higher since you always start below where you want to end up in a negotiation. Lastly, they discussed aspects of the development they would want to change, including voice actors and narrative, cinematics, esports, and stronger content and quest design. Originally, our next meeting was scheduled for Tuesday next week, but Mark had a scheduling conflict around Thanksgiving, and the next meeting is now scheduled for November 30th at the Riot Campus." Jason Caramez replies to this saying, "Understood. High figures is somewhere around $750 to $999 million valuation." Steven then says, "Correct. In my opinion, if they are willing to nonchalantly drive around the high nine figure, then in their strategy, then in their strategy, they would go above $1 billion." Steven then says, "I believe this is an attempt to elicit a response from me, testing the waters prior to an actual letter of intent or term sheet." Robert Dawson answers to all this, saying, "I feel the valuation will be $2 billion and everybody wins long-term." Steven then says, "I don't believe that is an unreasonable assessment. To say they are beyond thirsty is a sizable understatement." Jacob then says, "Robin, Steven, do you think a non-binding letter of intent at this point is doable?" Steven answers, "I think we'll have a light." Steven answers, "I think we'll have a letter of intent in December."

Robert claims that he relied on Steven's misrepresentations, including about Riot Games, to continue putting any money into Ashes of Creation, and that he had never told Steven to reject any kind of deal with Riot Games. Sort of aligning with a strange exhibit shared by Steven Sharif himself in the 400-page motion for a receiver. Robert Dawson states that he never desired control. He was forced to assume governance though when Steven failed and that he's just a frustrated financial backer who had poured tens of millions of dollars into a company run by a CEO who repeatedly failed to meet his own projections, refused to execute documents, and resisted all efforts at accountability and governance. Robert also calls out Steven's many media appearances on live streams and YouTube videos where Steven claimed he put his own money into Ashes of Creation. Robert also says while he may have had been frustrated and expressed that frustration, it was not physical intimidation or anything of that sort and that the documents he wanted Steven to always sign were signature pages for decisions already made by the board that Steven was already aware of.

Perhaps the most damning thing that Robert Dawson is sharing in the court is Steven reaching out to him and Jason Caramez for financial assistance with the Santa Fe mansion. And this is a really important thing Robert is disputing here as that was one of the central albeit exhibitless claims that Steven has made about how his house mortgage was leveraged against him to pressure him into doing things or signing things the board wanted. But now it seems Robert's text messages show Steven reaching out to him because Steven had no other financing options. No other lender was willing to offer Steven acceptable mortgage terms and that Steven threatened to quit and leave Ashes of Creation if his husband John Moore lost the house, which is a crazy crazy thing here. Robert Dawson details that the Nebraskan bank he's involved in called Pathway Bank, that again corroborates the ledger we published, bought the mortgage from him and Jason and they put the remaining money into Intrepid Studios to make payroll for employees.

In a text message sent on March 25th, 2024 to Robert Dawson and Jason Caramez from Steven Sharif, Steven says, "Hey, Jason and Rob. I am in a situation and need help. My home has the Main Street loan as a second against it, and I've been trying to refinance my first because it was due by the previous owner who carried me. He's unwilling to extend and has had me sign a forbearance agreement, giving him the right to immediately foreclose if I don't pay down the first. It's $4 million and I'm able to refinance the loan with a bank, but they won't do it with the Main Street second on the house. We have two appraisals done and it's worth $8 million and $4 million is owed. I don't know what to do and I'll be up a creek if I don't have a solution by Friday. I need some advice or help here. And all this is happening at the worst possible moment for my sanity with keeping the lights on and everything running, not to mention my marriage. At this point, I'll actually add context to the San Diego mansion matter that's becoming more and more central to this debacle with text messages from an upcoming video publication we'll be releasing on this channel that will wrap up the story of Jason Caramez from Steven to Jason on March 27th, 2024, 10:59 a.m. Steve says, 'Hey, Jason. Rob told me you're trying to help with my home situation. I appreciate it. I'm trying to scramble every other direction I can, but it isn't looking good. On top of everything happening at the company, it is overwhelming. You're my only hope right now. And they have a forbearance agreement. I can't believe how Andy, the lender, has been acting completely unwilling to negotiate is having an attorney ready to file Tuesday. If you need appraisals or anything, I've already gotten two. I was approved for a refinancing, but because of the company loan in the second position, no bank will touch it. Definitely don't know what to do. Stuck at the moment.' Jason then replies saying, 'This is so sad. Can you scrape $2 million together? Even though we've had our differences and animosity, I don't want my friend and brother losing his home.' Steven then replies, 'Yeah, I haven't slept more than an hour in the last 3 days. It's bad at the moment. I know we've had our differences. I don't harbor animosity. I'm just head down trying to deliver life-changing opportunity for the people in this deal I care about. I appreciate you and the willingness to step in and help. I can maybe scrape together $200,000ish, but I'm totally just absent of any resources.' sad face. Jason then answers, 'Does anyone you know have $2 million? I can maybe do $2 million. I told Rob. I'm just in a bad situation at the moment.' Also, Steven then speculates, 'I wonder if Rob can do $2 million.' Steven then says, 'Commerce West Bank is the administrator of the loan. The government only agrees to subordinate the loan, but the lender I had said they need to release the second entirely for 4 to 6 months until after refinancing, and the government is unwilling to do that.' Jason replies, 'Can you send me the document you signed putting up your house with Commerce? What happens if you lose your house and Main Street loses the collateral?' Steven then forwards the agreement. Then says, 'That's the contract that has the home as collateral.' Jason says, 'I haven't opened the email. I assume the loan is as a second, and why you can't refinance is the fact that the loan is much greater than the value of the house combined with the first and the second. I didn't know you even had a first loan on the house, bro. That was coming due. You never told me these things.' Yes, Steven says the refinancing said no bank will touch because the second is $5.2 million and the first loan is $4 million. I know, sad face, sad face. I had a very good relationship with Andy who held the first loan, but he completely turned on me and instead of giving me more time to find non-traditional lenders, he sent an attorney after me and said he won't give an extension and plans to foreclose. And also the bank told me they could get the government to take off the second for a few months while refinance. But then the government committee said they won't remove it. Jason answers, 'Does a does a government know they'll lose their money and they are not in first position on Intrepid?' Steven then says, 'Yes. The bank said it's a government and nothing they can do. Bank only has 5% exposure on this loan. I spoke to their CEO named Ivo.' Jason says, 'I wish you would have trusted me more years ago. I would have helped clean your life and world up so much and now you and I will not be second and third position with Rob owning Intrepid. Don't get me wrong, I am okay with Rob. He saved and still been saving the company. But the cost of him doing so is so much when two to three years ago we should have had books and records all cleaned up for institutional investors. So anyway, I told Rob, I'm trying to see what I can do here for you.'

So, in conclusion, the counter-motion for receiver by the board argues that a receivership basically isn't necessary at this point because there isn't an imminent foreclosure happening and they reversed a foreclosure in the first place as a sign of compromise or good faith and that they doubt Steven would act in good faith anyway. As from their perspective, he doesn't have a history of doing so. The board is basically arguing that the receivership would just delay things and cause even more financial harm to them because they are now stating they want to put Ashes of Creation out there in the market. Which again, take that with a grain of salt. But interestingly, it seems like the board is willing to compromise, saying that they want to spend only up to $65,000 when Steven Sharif has not even offered a budget or money because receivers are only appointed by the court and not paid for by the court. for receivership that's more limited in powers and scope than Steven wants. Uh, the way I understand this is that the judge will have three options to look at. First, grant the motion for receiver as desired by Steven and his legal team. Second, grant the motion for a receiver as desired by the board and their legal team. Or third, as the board really wants, don't even appoint a receiver and kind of wrap up things from here. It'll be interesting to see what the judge decides. I think that's the $65,000 offer the board has put out on the table will definitely make them look good in the eyes of the court. But who knows? Anyway, if you enjoyed this video, definitely subscribe to the channel and let me know what you