Rob Pardo, Blizzard’s creative director and World of Warcraft designer, founded the Bonfire gaming startup. The studio has raised $25 million and will start releasing online multiplayer.
Pardo worked at Blizzard Entertainment for 17 years. With his participation, StarCraft: Brood War, World of Warcraft, Warcraft 3 were created. He left the company two years ago. And now it became known what Pardo decided to do.
About future projects , Pardo said the following: “We don’t want genre restrictions. We really want to release games that will help people create a strong connection with each other.”
According to the New York Times magazine, Bonfire will work on online multiplayer. We have not decided on the platform: perhaps it will be PC projects, perhaps mobile. Or both.
There are no other details about future projects yet. So far, funding has only been completed and the main backbone of the team has been outlined. Together with Pardo, former colleagues from Blizzard – Nick Carpenter, Josh Mosqueira and Matthew Versluys – will work in Bonfire. In addition, Min Kim, the former CEO of Nexon, joined the team.
For the launch of the studio, Pardo raised $ 25 million – the money was given by the Andreessen Horowitz venture financing fund and the Riot Games company. Plus, John Riccitiello, the CEO of Unity, acted as an investor at earlier stages.
It is noteworthy that Pardo Riccitello commented on the initiative as follows: “I have been working in the industry for a long time to understand that anyone would trust him to run the game.”
Source: New York Times