{"id":457859,"date":"2026-03-04T23:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457859\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T23:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T23:00:08","slug":"former-blizzard-cco-and-bonfire-ceo-rob-pardo-to-present-keynote-address-at-gdc-festival-of-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457859\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Blizzard CCO and Bonfire CEO Rob Pardo to present keynote address at GDC Festival of Gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Bonfire Studios manager and former Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo will host a keynote address at GDC&#8217;s Festival of Gaming.<\/p>\n<p>Entitled &#8220;An Odyssey in Building Games That Last,&#8221; Pardo&#8217;s address will reflect decades of working in the industry, shaping some of the world&#8217;s biggest games, including iconic franchises like StarCraft, World of Warcraft, and Diablo, as well as how he approaches game-making at the studio he co-founded in 2016, Bonfire Studios.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For more than three decades, Rob Pardo has helped define what enduring game design looks like,&#8221; said Nina Brown, president of GDC.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At a time when our industry is navigating rapid technological change and evolving business models, his perspective is both grounding and forward-looking. Rob&#8217;s commitment to building games that players return to again and again reflects exactly the kind of creative conviction GDC Festival of Gaming is here to celebrate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Pardo&#8217;s keynote is set for 9am PT on Thursday, March 12.<\/p>\n<p>GDC Festival of Gaming is taking place from March 9-13 in San Francisco, California, and will welcome 1000+ speakers and 700+ sessions across the five-day event, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/gdc-keynotes-include-presentations-from-sandfall-interactive-adhoc-studios-and-hideo-kojima\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">presentations from Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive and Dispatch&#8217;s AdHoc Studio<\/a>. For more, head on over to <a href=\"https:\/\/schedule.gdconf.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GDC&#8217;s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/hideo-kojima-to-keynote-gdc-festival-of-gaming-2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hideo Kojima was slated to attend and present at the event, but withdrew last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/gdc-organiser-says-it-hasnt-seen-cancellations-from-overseas-visitors-attendance-tracking-in-line-with-expectations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">GDC organisers Informa recently revealed they have not seen any drop in planned attendance by overseas visitors<\/a>, despite escalating industry concern over both costs and the current US political situation. The show&#8217;s controversial decision to rebrand from the Game Developer Conference to the GDC Festival of Gaming also drew a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gamesindustry.biz\/gdc-festival-of-gaming-the-industry-reacts-to-the-controversial-rebrand\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">lukewarm response<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bonfire Studios manager and former Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo will host a keynote address at GDC&#8217;s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[59,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-457859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}