It’s rare that MMO news makes the front page of Reddit, so when I saw Ashes of Creation trending, I figured it wasn’t going to be for any sort of good news. Sure enough, as the doomers have prophesied for several years, the scam that was Steven Sharif’s Ashes of Creation has come to an end—and a very abrupt one at that.
I’ll spare regurgitating the details here, as Kira has that covered (and apparently also had the inside scoop days ahead of time, based on his first video). Feel free to watch through his video before reading on to my thoughts.
I’ve had a mixed history with Ashes of Creation. I have no shortage of gaming projects I backed in the early Kickstarter days, but for some reason I missed Ashes. By the time I was fully attuned to it, there was already a dedicated fanbase full of podcasts, websites, and a bustling subreddit. Still, I kept myself from becoming a funder. My younger self’s experience as an overzealous Warhammer Online fanboy—combined with other Kickstarter implosions—had hardened my wallet.
I kept up with the game in passing and at one point told myself I’d start blogging about it more. I figured it might be worth sharing my thoughts on updates and the direction the game was heading. Regardless of how all of this worked out, or what people think now, one thing was certain: Ashes was important to the future of MMOs. To what degree it was important can be debated, but there is pent-up demand for an MMO that doesn’t pull its punches.
One person who is likely breathing easier through all of this is Narc. He went from Ashes’ most public fanboy to its biggest critic in a heartbeat. The drama surrounding Narc’s departure really emphasized the split in the MMO community: those who believed in Ashes, and the doomers screaming, “Narc is right—it’s a scam!” The believers rushed in to defend Steven and Ashes, while the doomers trumpeted Narc’s departure. At the end of the day, as Narc stated in his final comment on the situation, the real reason he left was that he couldn’t trust Steven Sharif.
Narc wasn’t wrong about Steven, and that’s what stands out to me most from that entire saga. Steven defended Ashes against Narc’s claims vociferously, with one of his most poignant arguments being that those claims were damaging and putting the livelihoods of Intrepid’s employees at risk.
Fast forward to what we know so far, and it’s clear that the only real danger to Intrepid was Steven himself—and the business practices he used to finance the studio. Any of the day-one doomers will tell you this should have been obvious, given Steven’s history with MLM scams that were the source of his wealth to begin with. I can overlook Steven’s arguments about the game, but I won’t be able to look past his comments about protecting a company he ultimately ended up swindling.
So what’s next for Ashes? The original intent sounds like it was to continue with a smaller staff and without Steven involved. Unfortunately, multiple senior leaders also resigned alongside him, and it now sounds like the plug is going to be pulled entirely. Ashes of Creation is effectively just ashes. While those ashes may be shipped off to an offshore developer to try to sift something usable out of them, the Ashes of Creation everyone was hoping for is no more.
Let this be yet another cautionary tale for the MMO community. Whether it’s a trillion-dollar company like Amazon or a wannabe developer like Intrepid, there is no safety in being a loyal fan of any of these games. Nothing can keep our beloved genre safe any longer.
Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts are my own. The grammatical correctness and em dashes (—) are the AI.
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