Apex Noel

Paradox Interactive AB (publ) is a video game publisher based in Stockholm, Sweden. The company started out as the video game division of Target Games and then Paradox Entertainment (now Cabinet Entertainment) before being spun out into an independent company in 2004. Through a combination of founding new studios and purchasing independent developers, the company has grown to comprise nine first-party development studios, including their flagship Paradox Development Studio, and acts as publisher for games from other developers.

Paradox is best known for releasing historically themed strategy video games, especially grand strategy games, and has published strategy games in different settings, as well as games of other genres such as role-playing video games and management simulators. They typically continue development of their games after initial release with the creation of downloadable content, and are also known for creating games that are easy to mod.

Outside of video games, Paradox has created board games based on several of its titles, and have owned the rights to the tabletop role-playing game series World of Darkness since purchasing White Wolf Publishing in 2015. They hold an annual convention, PDXCon, which has been open to the public since 2017.

Separation from Paradox Entertainment (1999–2004)

Paradox Interactive's origins started with Target Games, a Sweden-based board game company. Target had been producing board and tabletop role-playing games in the 1980s and 1990s, and ventured into video games. By the late 1990s, Target was struggling financially, and they ultimately folded into bankruptcy by 1999. The video game division spun off into a separate entity, Paradox Entertainment, which published video game adaptions of Target's games. Between 2000 and 2003, Paradox Entertainment released the first titles of several grand strategy games, including Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun and Crusader Kings. The company had several mediocre releases, including Gettysburg: Armored Warfare, an attempt by the studio to make a massively multiplayer online game on a triple-A scale, but which was released with numerous problems and was critically panned, costing several jobs by the developer.

By around 2003, Paradox Entertainment began buying the intellectual property rights to various franchises like Conan the Barbarian from Robert E. Howard and Solomon Kane. Fredrik Wester, a former CEO of Paradox Interactive, stated that around 2003, he had been brought aboard Paradox Entertainment to help write their business plan, which included the drive to transform their video game division into a triple-A studio. Wester cautioned them about this, pointing back to the failure of Gettysburg. The Paradox Entertainment executives did not take this advice well and decided it would be better to shutter the video games division and focus exclusively on licensing their acquired brands. Instead, Wester, along with the Paradox Entertainment CEO Theodore Bergquist, bought out the video games division retaining the Swedish Paradox Development Studio and all seven of its developers including Johan Andersson, and gained all intellectual property rights to its past games, forming Paradox Interactive in 2004.

CD Projekt was founded in May 1994 by Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński. According to Iwiński, although he enjoyed playing video games as a child they were scarce in then-communist Poland. Marcin Iwiński, in high school, was selling cracked copies of Western video games at a Warsaw marketplace. In high school, Iwiński met Kiciński, who became his business partner; at that time, Kiciński was also selling video games.

Wanting to conduct business legitimately, Iwiński and Kiciński began importing games from US retailers and were the first importers of CD-ROM games. After Poland's transition to a primarily market-based economy in the early 90s, they founded their own company. Iwiński and Kiciński founded CD Projekt in the second quarter of 1994. With only $2,000, they used a friend's flat as a rent-free office.

When CD Projekt was founded, their biggest challenge was overcoming video game piracy. The company was one of the first in Poland to localize games; according to Iwiński, most of their products were sold to "mom-and-pop shops". CD Projekt began partial localization for developers such as Seven Stars and Leryx-LongSoft in 1996, and full-scale localization a year later. According to Iwiński, one of their first successful localization titles was for Ace Ventura; whereas previous localizations had only sold copies in the hundreds, Ace Ventura sold in the thousands, establishing the success of their localization approach. With their methods affirmed, CD Projekt approached BioWare and Interplay Entertainment for the Polish localization of Baldur's Gate. They expected the title to become popular in Poland, and felt that no retailer would be able to translate the text from English to Polish. To increase the title's popularity in Poland, CD Projekt added items to the game's packaging and hired well-known Polish actors to voice its characters. Their first attempt was successful, with 18,000 units shipped on the game's release day (higher than the average shipments of other games at the time).

The company continued to work with Interplay after the release of Baldur's Gate, collaborating on a PC port for the sequel Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. To develop the port, CD Projekt hired Sebastian Zieliński (who had developed Mortyr 2093-1944) and Adam Badowski. Six months after development began, Interplay experienced financial problems and cancelled the PC version. CD Projekt continued to localize other games after Dark Alliance's cancellation, and received Business Gazelle awards in 2003 and 2004.