Rob Pardo, a former creative director who spent 17 years at Blizzard Entertainment, has launched a gaming startup in Irvine called Bonfire.
As chief executive of Bonfire, Pardo recently raised $25 million in funding for the company from the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and from Riot Games, a game studio owned by the Chinese internet giant Tencent that makes “League of Legends,” one of the most popular online games in the world, the New York Times reported.
Notably, Andreessen Horowitz in 2013 led a $75 million funding round for gaming device maker Oculus, which was based in Irvine before Facebook bought the startup and moved it to Menlo Park.
Pardo, who left Blizzard in 2014, helped design video games including World of Warcraft, StarCraft, StarCraft: Brood War, Warcraft III and Diablo III.
Bonfire, which is registered to an address in the posh Shady Canyon neighborhood, does not have a game in development yet. Pardo, 46, says it is safe to assume the company will make online multiplayer games, though he has not yet decided whether it will create them for mobile devices, PCs or both.
“We have a lot of confidence they’re going to build something fantastic,” said Brandon Beck, chief executive and co-founder of Riot Games. “They’re pretty uncompromising when it comes to quality.”
Since its release, “World of Warcraft” has generated $12 billion to $13 billion in revenue, estimates Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.
For now, Pardo is focused on hiring people who can generate ideas and make game prototypes. Min Kim, a former executive with Nexon, an Asian game developer, and several former colleagues from Blizzard joined him as members of Bonfire’s founding team. He wants Bonfire’s games to re-create the social connections many players formed when banding together in clans in “World of Warcraft,” a game that allows players to fraternize with one another online.
“We don’t want to be constrained by genre,” Pardo said. “We really want to create games that help us make those deeper connections with each other.”
After leaving Blizzard, Pardo spent time designing another project, a custom home he now lives in with his family in Irvine. Allusions to geek culture are sprinkled throughout the home.
There are side-by-side men’s and women’s bathrooms labeled Horde and Alliance after the two character factions in “World of Warcraft,” and wooden floors inlaid with “Tetris” blocks.
The New York Times contributed to this report.
