In February of last year, Sweden’s mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the developer behind the wildly popular hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. That deal, however, is only the opening move in a broader 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 acquisition, is to double its overall size once more.
“We laid out the vision last year that, following the Plarium deal, we want to double again,” she explained. “Organic growth will continue to be a driver, but to hit that target we’ll need to pursue further acquisitions.” The timeline is aggressive: Redin aims to achieve the doubling within a three‑to‑five‑year window. She noted that MTG already hit a similar milestone in 2021, when the group’s revenue more than tripled, demonstrating that rapid scaling is not merely aspirational. The mobile gaming market, which a few years ago was expanding at double‑digit rates, has now settled into single‑digit growth, signalling a maturing landscape.
What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped users has become a crowded, red‑hot arena where growth often means taking market share from competitors or absorbing them outright. While buying companies can be straightforward, integrating them successfully is notoriously difficult, with many high‑profile failures ending in studio closures. Redin insists MTG has a clear integration blueprint. Before adding Plarium, MTG already owned a suite of mobile studios: InnoGames (creator of 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”: the Casual District and the Midcore District (midcore referring to games that sit between casual and hardcore experiences). The districts have now been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp, respectively. Playsimple, named after the Indian studio behind WordTrip, aggregates free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp houses the majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases (IAPs). Redin says the rebranding is more than a cosmetic change; it reflects a vision to build “one of the leading gaming villages.” The term “village” is intentional, meant to foster a sense of community that encourages talent retention and smooth integration of newly acquired teams.
“Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making,” she said. “People are our greatest asset, but we must create an environment where they can thrive. When we acquire a studio, we want the founders and their teams to stay on board because that’s when the real story begins and we can scale the business together.” A key part of the integration strategy is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group.
Redin notes that not every studio needs a bespoke stack; a common foundation can accelerate development and reduce duplication. The push for tech uniformity began when she took the helm in 2020, but the scale required to roll it out fully only arrived with Plarium’s addition. She acknowledges the pitfalls of forced standardisation—citing Electronic Arts’ problematic rollout of the Frostbite engine—but stresses that MTG tailors the approach to each district. Playsimple’s tech stack will serve as the baseline for future casual acquisitions, while the Midcore side will selectively adopt components of Plarium’s suite, ensuring that any shared tools truly add value.
Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system are already being deployed across MTG, with additional features being built in to enhance studio performance. Redin explains that the goal is to invest effort where the return is highest, leveraging the strong creative talent across the group and super‑charging it with a robust, shared tech suite. Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s modernization.
InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated assets for its mobile title Sunrise Village and plans to expand AI‑driven content creation across its portfolio. Redin observes that AI is becoming embedded in many production pipelines, from A/B testing and graphics generation to quality assurance.
“AI is significantly more powerful than any tool we’ve had before,” she says, adding that the challenge is to find the right balance—knowing where to adjust workflows and where to keep proven processes intact. The company’s AI strategy encourages experimentation within a unified framework: studios can trial new AI solutions, share successful approaches, and roll them out quickly across the organisation. Redin cautions against the notion that AI will replace human creativity, emphasizing that talent’s imaginative capacity remains essential. Yet she warns that ignoring AI would leave MTG trailing competitors, as the technology can help close capacity gaps in analysis, coding, art, and complex logic.
Financially, about 80 % of MTG’s revenue now comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple. Redin is eager to broaden both sides of the business.
She cites Snowprint as a model for future acquisitions—“if we could find five more Snowprints around the world, that would be fantastic”—and hints at the possibility of a third district that would leverage the group’s core marketing and data capabilities. Despite the market’s maturity, Redin believes the top‑ten mobile games remain remarkably stable year after year, reinforcing MTG’s long‑standing belief in evergreen IPs. While Raid: Shadow Legends will continue to generate revenue for many years, the company also recognises the necessity of a fresh pipeline. Plarium is preparing a new title for a soft launch early next year, and Redin stresses that new games keep the creative DNA of studios alive.
Industry observers such as Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen have warned that Western mobile publishers are “coasting,” with only two of the 22 billion‑dollar titles since 2020 originating from the West. Nonetheless, Redin remains optimistic: “We have three billion gamers globally, so the market is still compelling.
Growth will be modest—low to mid single‑digit—but by nurturing evergreen franchises and bringing new experiences to market, we can continue to expand.” In summary, MTG’s roadmap blends aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, technology standardisation, and AI‑enhanced production to pursue a doubling of scale within five years, while preserving the creative spirit that fuels its most successful games.