Ascaron Entertainment is a video game developer based in Germany. It was originally founded as Ascon, but adopted its present name in October 1996. Ascaron has its headquarters in Gütersloh, a town in western Germany. It has a development studio in Aachen and an international office in Birmingham, in the United Kingdom. Ascaron has traditionally had a particular focus on strategy and management games. Among its early successes were the Patrician series (a trading simulation) and the On the Ball series (a soccer team management simulation). More recently, the company has developed games such as Port Royale (a pirate game), Sacred (an RPG) and Darkstar One (a space combat simulation).