In February of last year, Swedish mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the blockbuster hero‑collecting title Raid: Shadow Legends. According to Maria Redin, MTG’s president and chief executive officer, that deal was only the opening move in a much larger plan.
“We set out the vision last year that, after the Plarium acquisition, we want to double the company again,” Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. “We’ll continue to drive organic growth, but to do that we’ll need to make more acquisitions.” She added that the target is to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years. The ambition is not new – MTG set a similar goal in 2021 and, as Redin noted, the group actually tripled in size during that period.
The mobile gaming market, once characterised by rapid double‑digit expansion, has now settled into single‑digit growth as the sector matures. What was once a blue‑ocean landscape has become increasingly competitive, meaning that future expansion will likely involve capturing market share from rivals or outright buying them. Acquiring studios is the easy part; integrating them is where many companies stumble. The industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed integrations that resulted in studio closures.
MTG, however, believes it has a clear roadmap. Before adding Plarium, 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 split into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District – the latter covering games that sit between casual and hardcore experiences. The districts have since been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp.
Playsimple, named after the Indian studio behind WordTrip, groups together free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp houses the majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases. The rebranding goes beyond a new name. Redin says the aim is to create “one of the leading gaming villages.” The wording is intentional; she wants a community that people are eager to join. Retaining talent and fostering a cohesive culture are top priorities for a company that has been on an acquisition binge.
“Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decisions,” Redin explained. “People are one of our biggest assets, but we also need an environment where they can thrive. When we buy a studio, we want the founders and teams to stay on board because that’s when the real story begins and we can scale the business. The only way to make that happen is to build a workplace they enjoy.” Behind the scenes, MTG has been standardising technology and tools across its portfolio – a move Redin began pushing when she took the helm in 2020.
The Plarium acquisition gave the group the scale needed to roll the vision out fully. She acknowledges the risks, citing EA’s troubled Frostbite rollout as an example, but stresses that the tech needs of Playsimple differ sharply from those of Playamp, so the two divisions are being treated separately.
“For Playsimple, the tech stack will become the foundation for any future casual studios we bring in. For Midcore, we’ve selected parts of Plarium’s tech suite to use group‑wide, but we’re deploying it selectively to ensure it benefits every studio,” Redin said.
“We’ve done a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it doesn’t.” Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system are already being rolled out across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality. The goal is to boost the output of all studios, focusing resources where they generate the greatest return.
Artificial intelligence is also reshaping MTG’s development pipeline. InnoGames, for instance, has been using generative AI to create content for its mobile title Sunrise Village and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across its portfolio.
Redin notes that AI is becoming embedded in many production processes throughout the mobile sector. “We’re all having similar conversations about how to adopt new technology,” she said.
“Generative AI is far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before. The challenge is finding the right balance – where to change workflows, where to keep them, and where AI can add the most value.” MTG is layering AI onto existing tools for tasks such as A/B testing, graphics generation, quality assurance and more. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid dissemination of best practices. When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creativity, Redin was cautious.
“I don’t think AI will do everything we do. Our talent’s creativity is still essential and not yet replicable by machines. But if we ignore AI, we’ll fall behind competitors.
AI can super‑charge our work, helping us address capacity shortfalls in coding, art and logic while preserving the human spark that makes games great.” Currently, roughly 80 % of MTG’s revenue stems from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % coming from Playsimple. Redin is eager to broaden the roster of studios, noting that the company bought Snowprint a few years ago and would love to acquire several more similar studios worldwide. While Playsimple is presently a single studio, Redin hinted at the possibility of adding a third “district” to the gaming village, likely built around core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data assets.
Regarding the game catalogue, Redin observes that the top‑ten mobile titles change little year after year. “Our thesis from day one has been to focus on evergreen IPs,” she said. “Raid Shadow Legends still has many years of life ahead, but we also need a pipeline of new games to keep the portfolio fresh.” The industry’s broader climate is challenging. Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen warned that Western mobile developers are “coasting,” with only two of the 22 titles that have generated over $1 billion since 2020 originating from the West.
Supercell itself has struggled to launch successful new IPs, as illustrated by the recent shutdown of Squad Busters. Redin acknowledges the difficulty: “It’s hard to make a successful game and scale it.
Plarium has a new title slated for soft launch early next year. If we stopped investing in new games, we’d lose part of the DNA that fuels creativity and passion.” Looking ahead, Redin remains optimistic about the market’s potential despite its maturation.
“We have three billion gamers worldwide, so the market is still compelling,” she affirmed. “Growth will be modest – low to mid single‑digit – but if we want to exceed that, we must continue to nurture our evergreen IPs while also bringing fresh experiences to players.”