Bonfire Studios’ launch follows up on Pardo’s 17-year career at Blizzard Entertainment, where he worked as lead designer on the original World of Warcraft and its expansion The Burning Crusade.
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“Game developers live the dream scenario where passion meets work”, said Pardo in a Medium blog post. But he left the big video game publisher in 2014 and he announced his brand new company, Bonfire Studios, today. But often, developers must compromise and decide – do I work on a blockbuster game where I have less personal impact or the gutsy indie studio that struggles to get noticed? He told the Times that the idea to create his own studio came from the success Blizzard found with Hearthstone, created by a very small team. “I feel like that team’s culture was one of the strongest”.
He added, “To ensure our developers have a big impact we are organizing them into small but powerful and diverse superhero teams, like the Avengers”.
“We want friends to connect through our games and share awesome experiences, tell the stories, and come closer together”, he explained. Bonfire Games has been fully funded to the tune of $25M through a joint investment by Riot Games and Andreessen Horowitz. According to the New York Times, Pardo raised a combined $25 million from Riot Games and Andreessen Horowitz. Former Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello and other unspecified people/organizations invested in Bonfire in an earlier round of investing. Given his and Kim’s backgrounds, and the presence of Riot in the company’s startup capital, it is expected that Bonfire will make online multiplayer games.
As yet, Bonfire Studios hasn’t revealed its debut project, however has made clear its mission statement. We can’t say we are going to Mount Doom to save the world, but we do think deeply about what we love about games.
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Above: Rob Pardo, former chief creative officer at Blizzard.
