Koch Media is no more. The Austrian mass media company has decided it’s time for a new look and a new name to mark a "new chapter" in its business.
You’ve probably heard more of the publishers and developers under Koch Media than Koch Media itself. Deep Silver, Flying Wild Hog, and Warhorse Studios are all under the Koch Media umbrella, just to name a few, which includes such IPs as Saints Row, Metro, Wasteland, Shenmue, and Shadow Warriors.
So why the name change after 28 years? According to managing director Klemens Kundratitz in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, the idea was to have something "more impactful" than just a visual update to the company’s logo.
"Obviously, we want to avoid people seeing this as window dressing," Kundratitz explained. "The signal we're sending is that we're on a journey and it's good to give this journey a new name, new visual appearance. New is always exciting."
And that new name is "Plaion" (pronounced "play-on"). Kundratitz noted that Plaion has previously been seen as a central European company, but ever since its merger with THQ Nordic (now known as Embracer Group), the company has more international ambitions. Plaion is a little easier to pronounce than Koch, which has a tricky "och" for non German speakers.
Plaion’s new logo is a green triangle, the internationally recognized symbol to "play" media, and the font chosen makes the IO sort of look like a one and a zero–a nod to Plaion’s digital ambitions. The move follows Facebook’s change to Meta to better describe its drive to create the metaverse.
"If Mark Zuckerberg can do it, we can do it," said Kundratitz. "There is no particular event that is forcing us to change anything, I think it's just overdue to do it."
The timing of Plaion’s name swap was largely due to Gamescom later this month, the world’s largest gaming convention where Plaion will have a “big presence.” Expect to see some new banners at Plaion’s booths alongside some new game announcements.
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