Paradigm initially started out as an experiment by scene personality and big title supplier Zeus. Zeus wanted to see if an organised and efficient yet small in size group could compete with the big groups. The experiment which was self titled worked for a few weeks but was brought to an end after Zeus decided to team up with an additional two groups to form Paradigm. Involved was the German based Dynasty and the unsuccessful Fairlight CD-RIP division known as ROMLight.

The newly combined group was moderately successful but by the end of 1996 they took up an offer to merge into Razor 1911. The amalgamation only lasted a few months before a split or as Paradigm called it an 'unmerge' meant the return of the Paradigm brand. Over the years the group remained quite a significant force and held a solid reputation. So it came as quite a surprise when it was announced in January of 2000 that Paradigm would merge with Origin, a group whose reputation was less amicable and together they would become MythPC.

Paradigm is a new group, launched by the famous US supplier Zeus, the remnants of the defunct ROMLight, and members of the German group, Dynasty. The group has cranked out several quality releases, and appears to be a force to be reckoned with for the rest of the year.

After his departure from Prestige, there was a lot of speculation about what would happen to Zeus. Would he hang it up, as he hinted he might be interested in retirement? Would he join another group, as many groups were rumored to have propositioned him about joining? Or would he start his own group? Our questions were answered when Zeus decided to form a group, named after himself.

The initial premise behind the formation of ZEUS was to find out if a small group could hang with the "big boys." as Zeus referred to the larger groups. At first, his plan went successfully, with ZEUS putting out two titles from Maxis - SimCopter and SimGolf, and following those up with a major game - Syndicate Wars from Bullfrog/EA. It later came out that SimCopter was a beta, and SimGolf didn't even work. Perhaps his early mistakes are what discouraged him, but for whatever reason, Zeus chose to disband his group.

Dynasty had been a successful group in Germany for quite some time. A few months ago, the DNS guys joined up with Hybrid and helped them to a victory in August. Because of internal trouble in Hybrid, the Dynasty members left and went back to their old label again. When ZEUS made it public in the NFO file that the group would soon become a new one, the DNS guys were interested. Clearly there was an opportunity here, for a group that had only a major US supplier, but no crackers, and no European suppliers. So, the Dynasty members decided to team up with ZEUS and came up with the new group, Paradigm.

There was still another group-entity floating about, a group of members who felt that they could still contribute to the scene, but were not in a good position to do so in their current group. These guys were RomLight members, or what was left of RLT, anyway. Seeing an opportunity to associate themselves with a good supplier, Holy Beast, Hemp Hoodlum, and the rest of the RomLight members jumped ship to Paradigm. In fact, Holy Beast cracked PDM's inaugural release, FIFA '97. It's pretty much common knowledge that Holy Beast is one of the better crackers around, and the fact that most of the originals that PDM will get will be inside titles from Zeus should allow him to crack many titles for the group. The rest of the RLT members have yet to prove their worth to the group, but I imagine that they were brought on board for a reason, so expect to see something from them sometime soon.

Significant Events

• 1996 . Zeus (the person) leaves Prestige
• 1996 . Zeus the group is founded
• 1996 . Zeus the group teams up with Dynasty and ROM Light to create Paradigm
• 1997 . Origin is founded
• 1998 . PDMISO is formed as an ISO affiliate
• 1998 . ROM Light members in Paradigm create their own ISO group, Fairlight
• 2000 . Paradigm team up with former rivals Origin and create Myth
• 2000 . Class, Myth & Divine agree to new rip rules
• 2005 . Myth retires from the scene