CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

Plaion

Austrian media enterprise

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 1, 2026
Entity authorityQ555273
Source-derived summary

Plaion GmbH (formerly Koch Media) is an Austrian media company headquartered in Höfen, Tyrol, with an additional office in Planegg, Germany. It was founded in 1994 by Franz Koch and Klemens Kundratitz. The company operates video game publishing labels Deep Silver, Prime Matter and Ravenscourt, the video game developer Milestone, as well as a film distribution arm, Plaion Pictures. Koch Media's parent company, Koch Media Holding, was acquired by Swedish holding company Embracer Group (then known as THQ Nordic AB) in February 2018.

History

Early history (1994–2015)

Koch Media was founded in 1994 by Franz Koch (founder of Koch International) and his business partner, Klemens Kundratitz to market and distribute software. Koch Media operated out of offices in Germany and Austria, while a regional subsidiary, Koch Media Ltd., was opened in England. In 1995, Koch Media sold more than 250,000 software licenses, and in 1996, the company began distributing video games. Another regional subsidiary, Koch Media AG, was formed in Switzerland in 1998. A holding company, Koch Media Holding, was established in 2000 to unite Koch Media's business areas. The same year, Koch Media srl was formed as a regional subsidiary for Italy.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Plaion” is austrian media enterprise. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Plaion, Austrian and media, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 2018, 2015, 1995—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1994-01-01. For this dossier, Plaion, Austrian and media is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “austrian media enterprise” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q555273. None of the 3 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1994, 2018, 2015 and 1995.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Plaion”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Plaion primary sources, Plaion archive and Plaion research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Plaion”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Plaion” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.