Riot Games Allegedly Tried to Buy Ashes of Creation for Hundreds of Millions in 2022

The fallout behind the recent closure of the MMORPG Ashes of Creation, took another turn today. Not only has the studio recently announced they are shutting down the game just months after the Steam release.

Now a legal battle between Steven Sharif, the CEO of Intrepid Studios, the game's development team, and a pair of major investors, Robert Dawson and Jason Caramanis, has revealed a gaming titan tried to acquire the game in 2022.

To catch you up to speed if you have not followed the drama, Caramanis publicly accused Sharif of fraud and other illegal acts with a lawsuit already filed by TFE Games Holdings against Sharif. In the past week, Sharif has filed his own counter-lawsuit against the other investor, Dawson and TFE Games Holdings.

As part of the lawsuits, a recent legal document revealed that in late 2022 and early 2023 a major game studio reached out offering hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire Ashes of Creation. However, Dawson allegedly urged Sharif to reject the deal. In a recent interview with NefasQS, Caramnis revealed that the only company that had dialogue with Intrepid Studios was Riot.

While nothing has been officially confirmed, Riot's attempt to acquire Ashes of Creation is an interesting twist. The company has been working on a League of Legends MMO for several years, with the project recently being rebooted in early 2024, but it still has nothing to show for it.

The drama around Ashes of Creation is not done by a long shot, with several more lawsuits to sift through, plus Steven Sharif appeared in the YouTube chat of the interview Caramnis did with NefasQS and left quite the interesting comment:

My goal is maximum accountability. I am glad to see Jason commenting and sharing as much as he is, I think you are doing a great job with that @NefasQS, so thank you for that. It obviously would not make much sense for me to fight a battle in the court of public opinion, when the truth will come out obviously in court. Federal court is not like state court; there is a higher burden of factual proof required. I would not sign my name to that document if I was not certain of the truthfulness.

Did you ever try Ashes of Creation? What is your take away on all the surrounding drama and when do you think we will get a final resolution? Let us know in the comments and in our GamerzTheory Discord.