In February of the previous year, Sweden’s mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the blockbuster hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. According to Maria Redin, MTG’s president and chief executive, that deal was merely the opening move in a much larger plan. “We set out the vision last year that after bringing Plarium into the fold we want to double the group again,” Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. “We will continue to drive organic growth, but to do that we’ll need to make further acquisitions.” The timeline she cites is aggressive: the goal is to achieve a two‑fold increase in size within roughly three to five years.
Redin points out that MTG has already proven it can scale quickly – the company set a similar ambition in 2021 and, according to her, tripled its size in the ensuing period. A few years ago the mobile sector was expanding at double‑digit rates, but growth has since slowed to single‑digit percentages, reflecting a market that is now mature. What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped users has turned into a red‑hot arena where expansion usually means taking market share from rivals or swallowing them whole through acquisitions.
Buying companies is the easy part; integrating them is where many firms stumble. The games industry is littered with stories of poorly handled mergers that end in studio closures.
MTG, however, believes it has a roadmap for smooth integration. Before the Plarium deal, MTG already owned a portfolio of mobile studios, 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 purely casual and fully hardcore experiences.
The districts have now been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp, respectively. Playsimple, named after the India‑based WordTrip studio, houses free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp contains the majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases.
The rebranding is only the surface of a deeper cultural shift. Redin says the ambition is to create “one of the leading gaming villages.” The term “village” is intentional, meant to evoke a sense of community that staff want to belong to. Retaining talent and fostering cohesion is crucial for a company that has been acquiring studios at a rapid pace. “Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making,” Redin explains.
“People are our biggest asset, but we must also build 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 – scaling the business.
The only way to make that happen is to give them a workplace they enjoy.” Behind the scenes, MTG has been standardising technology and tools across its ecosystem. Redin notes that not every piece of software needs to be built from scratch for each studio. The push for a common tech stack began when she became CEO in 2020, but the scale required to roll it out fully only materialised after the Plarium acquisition.
The company is careful not to repeat the mistakes of others. EA’s mandate that all its studios adopt the Frostbite engine caused major friction for teams working on titles such as Mass Effect.
MTG, by contrast, recognises that the needs of Playsimple differ dramatically from those of Playamp, and therefore treats the two divisions separately. “For Playsimple, the tech stack will become the foundation for any future casual‑district studios we bring in,” Redin says. “For Midcore, we have selected parts of Plarium’s technology suite to share group‑wide, but we are rolling it out selectively to ensure the end result benefits every studio. We performed a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it does not.” Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and its product‑detail‑page data system are already being used across MTG, and Redin adds that the group is continuously adding new features and functionality.
The aim is to boost the productivity of all studios. “We want to invest where we get the biggest bang for our buck,” she says.
“We have fantastic game makers across the group, and with Playamp we intend to super‑charge them with a tech suite that elevates everything they already do.” Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s modernization. InnoGames, for example, has been generating all content for its mobile title Sunrise Village with AI for some time and is looking to expand that capability.
Redin observes that AI integration is becoming a standard discussion point across the mobile sector. “I think most of the industry is talking about how to embed new technology into our production pipelines,” she notes.
“Generative AI is far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before. The challenge is finding the right balance – where do we change the workflow, where do we keep it, and where can AI give us a real edge?
Ultimately it’s about making our games more relevant to players and, ideally, bringing new titles to market faster and better.” MTG’s approach is to layer AI onto existing tools for tasks such as A/B testing, graphics creation, quality assurance and more. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium tech suite.
Redin emphasizes the importance of allowing each studio the freedom to experiment within an overarching AI framework, then sharing learnings quickly across the group. When asked whether AI has become indispensable for competing in the fast‑moving mobile market, Redin is cautious. “It’s dangerous to claim AI will do everything,” she says. “Our talent’s creativity is still something AI can’t replicate.
But if we ignore AI we will fall behind competitors. Embracing it lets us keep our creative vision while leveraging new levels of technology.” She adds that AI can help address capacity shortfalls in areas such as analysis, coding, art and advanced logic. Currently about 80 % of MTG’s revenue is generated by the Playamp division, with the casual side (Playsimple) contributing roughly 20 %.
Redin is eager to expand both sides. “We bought Snowprint a few years ago; if we could find five more studios like Snowprint worldwide, that would be fantastic. On the casual side we’d also like to add scale.” At present Playsimple is a single studio, but Redin hints at the possibility of adding a third “district” to the gaming village, likely built around the group’s core marketing and data capabilities.
Regarding the game pipeline, Redin observes that the top‑ten mobile titles change very little year over year. “Our thesis from day one has been to back evergreen IPs,” she says. “Raid has many years left, but we also believe in developing new games to keep the pipeline fresh.” The broader industry context is sobering. Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen warned that Western mobile development is “coasting,” with only two of the 22 titles that have earned over $1 billion since 2020 originating from the West.
Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled; the Squad Busters project was shut down after its 2024 launch. Redin acknowledges the difficulty: “It’s hard to make a successful game and then scale it. Plarium has a new title slated for a soft launch early next year. Not investing in new games would erode the creative DNA of our studios.
That creativity, passion and drive are essential.” Looking ahead, Redin sees growth opportunities despite a maturing market. “We have three billion gamers worldwide – it’s a compelling market.
We compete for attention with streaming services and social media, but I still believe there is room for growth.” She tempers expectations, noting that hyper‑growth is unlikely to return; instead, MTG aims for low‑ to mid‑single‑digit growth, supplemented by strong evergreen IPs and a steady flow of fresh titles.