In February of the previous year, Sweden's mobile entertainment titan Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the developer behind the blockbuster hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. That transaction, however, is only the opening move in a broader, more aggressive expansion plan, according to MTG's president and chief executive, Maria Redin. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s ambition, set after the Plarium deal, is to double its overall scale once again.
"We set out the vision last year that post‑acquisition of Plarium we want to double yet again in size," she said. "And yes, we want to fuel and continue to drive organic growth, but in order to do that, we will need to do more acquisitions." The timeline for this second doubling is tight – Redin targets a three‑to‑five‑year horizon. She noted that MTG has already demonstrated the ability to meet bold goals, recalling that a similar ambition in 2021 resulted in a three‑fold increase in size.
The mobile gaming landscape has changed dramatically in the intervening years. A few years ago the sector was expanding at double‑digit rates, but growth has now settled into single‑digit figures as the market matures.
What was once a vast, open ocean of opportunity has become a crowded, highly competitive arena where gaining market share often means either taking a piece of a rival’s audience or absorbing the rival outright. Acquisitions are therefore a logical lever, but the real challenge lies in integrating newly bought studios without disrupting their creative engines. The industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed mergers that led to studio closures and talent loss. MTG believes it has a formula to avoid those pitfalls.
Prior to buying Plarium, the group already owned a portfolio of well‑known mobile studios, including InnoGames (creator of Forge of Empires), Snowprint (Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus), Hutch (F1 Clash), Ninja Kiwi (Bloons TD 6), and Futureplay (Merge Gardens). These entities were originally grouped into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District – the latter covering games that sit between purely casual and hardcore experiences. As part of a recent rebranding, the Casual District has been renamed Playsimple, after the Indian studio that built WordTrip, while the Midcore District is now called Playamp.
Playsimple focuses on free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, whereas Playamp concentrates on games that generate the bulk of revenue through in‑app purchases. Redin emphasized that the renaming is more than cosmetic. She envisions MTG evolving into "one of the leading gaming villages," a phrase chosen deliberately to evoke a sense of community and belonging. "It is supposed to create something that people want to be part of," she explained.
Retaining talent and fostering a collaborative culture are top priorities for a company that has grown quickly through acquisition. "People are for sure one of our biggest assets, but you also need to make sure you create an environment for them to thrive in," Redin said.
The goal is to keep founders and development teams on board after a purchase, because the real upside comes from scaling those businesses rather than simply adding them to a balance sheet. A key pillar of the integration strategy is the standardisation of technology and tools across the MTG ecosystem. Since Redin took the helm in 2020, the group has been working toward a unified tech stack, but the Plarium acquisition gave MTG the scale needed to roll the vision out fully.
"Not everything needs to be built uniquely for every single company," she noted, adding that the standardisation effort is being applied selectively. Playsimple and Playamp have very different technical requirements, so the two divisions are being equipped with distinct toolsets.
For the Midcore side, MTG has chosen several components from Plarium’s technology suite and is deploying them gradually, ensuring that each studio benefits without being forced into a one‑size‑fits‑all solution. Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and its product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system have already been rolled out across the group, and MTG is augmenting them with additional features. The intention is to boost productivity and performance for all studios, especially those in Playamp, by giving them a robust, shared infrastructure.
Redin stressed that the company aims to allocate resources where they deliver the greatest return, saying, "We want to make sure that we put our efforts where we get the biggest bang for our buck." Artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, is another area where MTG is investing heavily. InnoGames, for example, has been using AI to generate content for its mobile title Sunrise Village and is exploring broader AI‑driven content creation across its catalogue.
Redin sees this as part of a wider industry trend: AI is being woven into the production pipeline to accelerate development, improve quality, and enhance player experiences. She described AI as "significantly more powerful than any other tool we have had before" and emphasized the need to strike a balance between automation and human creativity.
"We keep the creativity, innovation, and vision of our team, but we can actually leverage completely new levels of technology next to it," she said. The company’s AI strategy focuses on augmenting existing workflows rather than replacing them. AI modules are being added to support tasks such as A/B testing, graphic generation, quality assurance, and data analysis. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being packaged into the broader Plarium tech suite so that other teams can adopt them quickly.
Redin highlighted the importance of a shared learning culture: "We need to allow our different studios to try different things, as long as it fits into our overarching AI framework on the dos and don’ts. Then we share the learnings, and when one company's developing something really good, we make sure we can very quickly roll that out on a broader scale." When asked whether AI has become a prerequisite for competing in the fast‑moving mobile market, Redin was cautious. "I often get the question, is gaming AI going to be able to do everything you do?
And I actually don't think so," she replied. She believes that human creativity remains irreplaceable, but also warned that companies that ignore AI risk falling behind their rivals. "If we don't embrace AI, we are going to be slower than what our competitors are," she said, adding that AI can help bridge capacity gaps in areas such as coding, art, and complex logic. Financially, about 80 % of MTG’s revenue now comes from the Playamp division, while the Casual side (Playsimple) contributes roughly 20 %.
Redin is eager to broaden both sides of the business. She cited Snowprint as an example of a studio she would like to replicate: "If we could find five more Snowprints around the world, that would be fantastic." Although Playsimple currently consists of a single studio, Redin hinted at the possibility of adding a third district to the "gaming village" concept, one that would likely leverage the group’s marketing platforms and data capabilities. Despite the emphasis on acquisitions and technology, Redin affirmed that MTG’s core philosophy remains rooted in evergreen intellectual property. The top‑ten mobile games list changes little year over year, and the company’s strategy has always been to back proven, long‑lived titles.
Raid: Shadow Legends, for instance, still has many years of revenue potential. At the same time, Redin stressed the necessity of a fresh pipeline: "We need to continue to have a pipeline of games coming to the market," she said, acknowledging that developing new hits is challenging in a market where only a handful of recent releases have broken the $1 billion barrier. Industry peers such as Supercell have warned that the western mobile sector is "coasting," noting that only two of the 22 games surpassing $1 billion since 2020 originated in the West.
Even Supercell’s own incubator projects have struggled, with titles like Squad Busters being shut down after a brief launch. Redin agrees that creating and scaling a successful new game is difficult, but she believes it is essential for preserving the creative DNA of each studio and for sustaining long‑term growth.
Looking ahead, Redin remains optimistic about the market’s overall health. With roughly three billion gamers worldwide, the audience is still compelling, even though competition now includes streaming services, social media, and other digital entertainment forms. She expects growth to settle into low‑ to mid‑single‑digit percentages rather than the hyper‑growth of earlier years.
To exceed that baseline, MTG will continue to invest in its strong evergreen IPs while also bringing fresh titles to market, leveraging both acquisition scale and cutting‑edge AI tools to stay ahead of the curve.