@Medium they report that ex-Blizzard man Rob Pardo has formed a new studio called Bonfire Studios. Rob is reportedly aiming for the space between the Indie and the AAA market and already has strong financial backing thanks to partners Riot Games and venture capital outfit Andreessen Horowitz.

Game developers live the dream scenario where passion meets work. We don't view our week as something to get through so we can really live on the weekend. 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? Our vision is to create a studio that doesn't require them to choose.

As lifelong gamers, we approached this problem like we are embarking on an epic quest.

The most important part of our quest is WHY are we doing this? 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. One of the most rewarding parts of creating any game, be it a D&D campaign or a massive persistent world, is the connection you have to the players themselves. You get to see the player's reactions, you get to respond to them and make their experience better over time. It's like the warmth of friends around a bonfire, sharing stories.

And that's why we named our studio BONFIRE. The bonfire is a metaphor for the experiences we wish to create. We want friends to connect through our games and share amazing experiences, tell the stories, and come closer together.

To ensure our developers have a big impact we are organizing them into small but powerful and diverse superhero teams, like the Avengers. We believe you can create epic games with small teams of talented, self-driven game developers, where each team is deeply connected to their players and empowered to make the best decisions to evolve their game without bureaucracies, committees or middle management in their way.