In February of last year, Sweden’s mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the wildly popular hero‑collecting title Raid: Shadow Legends. That deal, however, appears to be only the opening move in a broader expansion play.
"Last year we set a vision that, after bringing Plarium into the fold, we want to double our size again," MTG’s president and chief executive Maria Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. "We’ll keep driving organic growth, but to achieve that we’ll need to pursue additional acquisitions." Redin’s timeline for the doubling is aggressive: she aims to hit the target within three to five years. The Swedish group already has a track record of rapid scaling – a goal set in 2021 that resulted in a tripling of the company’s footprint. A few years ago the mobile market was expanding at double‑digit rates, but growth has now settled into single‑digit territory, signalling a maturing sector.
What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped users has become a crowded red sea, where expansion often means taking market share from rivals or absorbing them outright. Acquiring studios is the easy part; the real challenge lies in integration.
The gaming industry is littered with cautionary tales of acquisitions that faltered, leading to studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear roadmap. Before the Plarium deal, MTG already owned a suite of mobile developers, including InnoGames (Forge of Empires), Snowprint (Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus), Hutch (F1 Clash), Ninja Kiwi (Bloons TD 6), and Futureplay (Merge Gardens). These studios were grouped into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District – the latter covering games that sit between pure casual and hardcore experiences.
The districts have now been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp respectively. Playsimple, named after the Indian studio behind WordTrip, houses free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp contains the portfolio of games that rely primarily on in‑app purchases. The rebranding goes beyond a name change. Redin wants to create "one of the leading gaming villages," a phrase chosen to convey a sense of community that encourages talent to stay.
"Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making," she explained. "People are our greatest asset, but we must also provide an environment where they can thrive.
When we acquire a studio, we want the founders and their teams to remain post‑deal, because that is when the real story begins – scaling the business together. The only way to keep them is to make the workplace enjoyable." Behind the scenes, MTG has been standardising technology and tools across its portfolio. Redin notes that not every studio needs a bespoke stack; the push for common platforms began when she took the helm in 2020, but only after the Plarium acquisition did the company have sufficient scale to roll the vision out fully. Standardisation can be a double‑edged sword.
Electronic Arts famously forced its studios to adopt the Frostbite engine, creating friction on projects like Mass Effect. Redin is careful to treat the two districts separately, recognising that the tech needs of Playsimple differ dramatically from those of Playamp. "Playsimple’s tech stack will become the foundation for any future casual‑district studio we bring in," she said.
"For midcore, we have selected parts of Plarium’s suite to deploy group‑wide, but we are rolling it out selectively to ensure the end result benefits every company. We conducted a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it does not." Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page data system are already being used across MTG, and Redin says the group is adding new features to enhance them.
The goal is to maximise impact: "We want to focus our effort where we get the biggest bang for our buck. We have amazing game makers across the group, and with Playamp we aim to super‑charge them with a robust tech suite that elevates what they already do." Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s strategy. InnoGames revealed that much of the content for its mobile title Sunrise Village is now AI‑generated, and the studio plans to broaden AI‑driven creation across its portfolio. Redin sees this as part of a wider industry trend: AI tools are being woven into production pipelines to speed up content creation, improve A/B testing, enhance graphics, and streamline quality assurance.
"Most of the people I talk to are having the same conversations about how to adopt new technology," she noted. "Generative AI is far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before. The challenge is finding the right balance – where to change the workflow and where to keep it the same. Ultimately it’s about using new tech to keep our games relevant and, ideally, to bring them to market faster and better." MTG encourages studios to experiment within an overarching AI framework that outlines dos and don’ts.
Successful AI solutions from individual studios are then rolled out across the Plarium suite, allowing rapid dissemination of best practices. When asked whether AI has become indispensable in the hyper‑competitive mobile arena, Redin cautioned against overstatement.
"I often get asked if gaming AI will replace everything we do. I don’t think so. Creativity remains a human strength that AI can’t replicate yet. But if we ignore AI, we’ll fall behind competitors.
Embracing it lets us maintain our creative edge while gaining new levels of efficiency." She highlighted that AI can help address capacity shortfalls in areas such as coding, art, and complex logic, effectively super‑charging the development process. Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income now comes from the Playamp division, with the casual side (Playsimple) contributing roughly 20 % despite consisting of a single studio at present.
Redin is eager to broaden both sides: "We bought Snowprint a few years ago; finding five more studios like that would be fantastic. On the casual front we’d like to add scale as well." Looking ahead, Redin hinted at the possibility of a third district within the gaming village, likely built around core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data analytics, though the exact shape remains undecided. In terms of game portfolios, the top‑ten mobile titles change little year over year.
"Our thesis from day one has been a belief in evergreen IPs," Redin said. While Raid : Shadow Legends still has many years of life ahead, MTG continues to invest in new titles to keep the pipeline fresh. Plarium, for example, is preparing a soft launch of a new game early next year.
Industry observers note that creating a breakout hit has become increasingly difficult. Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen warned that the Western mobile market is “coasting,” with only two of the 22 billion‑dollar titles since 2020 originating from the West.
Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled, as seen with the recent shutdown of Squad Busters. Redin acknowledges the challenge: "It’s hard to make a successful game and scale it.
Not investing in new games would erode the creative DNA of our studios. Fresh ideas keep passion alive." Overall, Redin sees a still‑compelling market despite slower growth rates. With three billion gamers worldwide, the sector remains attractive, even as it competes for attention with streaming services and social media.
She expects growth to settle in the low‑ to mid‑single‑digit range, and believes that sustained investment in strong evergreen IPs, combined with a steady flow of new releases, is the formula to exceed that baseline.