“Game developers live the dream scenario where passion meets work”, said Pardo in a Medium blog post.
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To give us the ability to operate with independence and create the games we want, we had to find awesome investors.
Bonfire could be more accurately described as multiple bonfires within the same campgrounds: other information from Pardo alludes to multiple, smaller projects rather than one team working on one project. But we needed more than financial backing, we wanted true partners that could give us sage advice about the road ahead, connect us to future partners and most importantly who share our vision for Bonfire Studios. “I feel like that team’s culture was one of the strongest”.
What sort of games would you like to see out of Bonfire Studios?
In fact, Bonfire Studios has already acquired more than $25 million in venture capital and they don’t even have a game in production yet. They’ll start with $25 million Dollars in venture capital from different investors – including Riot Games (League of Legends), and John Riccitiello (former EA chief executive, now working with Unity).
Blizzard, a unit of Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard Inc., is Orange County’s largest software maker with about 2,000 local employees and revenue of $1.56 billion a year ago. Pardo told the Times that Bonfire is likely to make multiplayer games but it is too early to say weather they will be for the PC, smartphone or both. Whatever the case, Riot sounds excited.
Bonfire Studios hasn’t announced any titles yet, however CEO Pardo has said the name of the studio is a metaphor for the experiences they want to create. “Several” former Blizzard colleagues are joining Pardo at Bonfire, while former Nexon executive Min Kim is also on board.
The New York Times was the first to report the funding and launch.
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It wouldn’t be a stretch to assume Rob Pardo is going to try and focus on a Hearthstone sized development team for Bonfire’s projects.
