Paradox Interactive AB

Founded in the early-to-mid 1980s, Target Games AB was a gaming company located in Stockholm, Sweden. Until the mid 1990s, the company developed roleplaying board games and published them under the brand name Äventyrsspel (meaning "adventure games"). The most well-known of their board games were: Warzone (cyberpunk war game, 1995), Kult (contemporary fantasy horror game, 1991) and Chronopia (dark fantasy war game). The company also produced a line of resin miniatures and terrain items to accompany their tabletop games.

They divided their line of products into 3 major areas:

Adventure: miniature and roleplaying board games

Interactive: all entertainment software

Prins August: all family games and toy candy

Video games released by Target Games included Svea Rike (1997) and its sequel Svea Rike 2 (1999).

Target Games' known divisions were:

• Target Games AB
• Target Games Interactive AB (Video Games Division)
• Target Games Adventure AB (board game accessories) with the subdivisions
  • Target Games UK
  • Target Games US
  • Target Games Eire

In late 1999, Target Games went into bankruptcy proceedings, sold off its interactive division (computer games) to form Paradox Entertainment AB, then sold its adventure gaming division (miniatures) to Paradox. The Target company principals kept ownership of the intellectual property, licensing some to Paradox.

In January 2000, all of the company stock of Paradox Entertainment AB was sold in a major buy-out by external investors and former management members Fredrik Malmberg and Nils Gulliksson, who became its Chief Executive Officer. All of the Target Games divisions and branches were closed or acquired, and Paradox Entertainment AB became the new company name.

Paradox Entertainment AB developed and published games for four years between 2000 and 2004. Released titles included:

• Svea Rike III (2000)
• Europa Universalis (2000)
• Europa Universalis II (2001)
• Hearts of Iron (2002)
• Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun (2003)
• Crusader Kings (2004)

In November 2001, Paradox Entertainment formed Point Blank Development, an independent company to handle game development based on the acclaimed Valpurgius 3D technology and new gameplay innovations. Paradox Entertainment was the major stockholder of this new company.

In November 2004, the entire interactive branch was sold to Theodore Bergquist, the current CEO of the company. Bergquist named his new company Paradox Interactive AB. The deal included all of the previous video games and everything currently in production. Paradox Entertainment AB, still lead by CEO Fredrik Malmberg, left the gaming industry entirely and diverted its interests to developing and licensing character-based properties including Conan, stories by pulp author Robert E. Howard and others. Through its subsidiary in Los Angeles, California, (Paradox Entertainment Inc.), it was developing several major motion pictures. In May 2015, it was acquired by Malmberg's company Cabinet Entertainment. While Cabinet continued to hold the IP business, Paradox Entertainment was renamed to Sensori AB and sold medical supplies.

The first game to be released under the Paradox Interactive AB banner was Hearts of Iron II. Many other titles have been developed and produced by the company, many of which were sequels to older Paradox Entertainment games and were still supported by the new company. Paradox Interactive AB's headquarters remain in Stockholm, Sweden.

In 2006 the company announced to refocus their efforts into publishing rather than developing games. An additional office was opened in New York City and, in April 2006, their GamersGate AB distribution portal was launched.

Once that really started to grow, the company was split once again. Since January 2012, Paradox Interactive is the game publisher and Paradox Development Studio that focus on game development. In 2022, the company launched the Paradox Arc label for externally developed games.

Known Paradox Interactive studios

Names in italics used to be subsidiaries, but no longer are as they were closed or sold off.

• Paradox Development Studio in Stockholm, Sweden (founded in 2012, split in 2021 to Green, Red and Gold teams)
• Triumph Studios in Delft, The Netherlands (founded in 1997, acquired in 2017)
• AGEod in Grenoble, France (founded in 2005, acquired in 2009 as Paradox France, became independent again in 2012)
• Harebrained Schemes in Seattle, Washington, USA (founded in 2011, acquired in 2018, became independent again in 2024)
• Paradox South AB (founded in 2012, closed in 2016)
• Paradox Arctic in Umeå, Sweden (founded in 2014, closed in 2023)
• Paradox Thalassic in Malmö, Sweden (founded in 2017, closed in 2023)
• Paradox Tectonic in Berkeley, California, USA (founded in 2019)
• Paradox Tinto in Barcelona, Spain (founded in 2020)
• Playrion Game Studio in Paris, France (founded in 2010, acquired in 2020)
• Iceflake Studios Oy in Tampere, Finland (founded in 2007, acquired in 2020)