In February of last year, the Swedish mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the blockbuster 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 size once again. “We laid out the vision last year that, following the Plarium deal, we want to double again,” she explained. “We’ll keep pushing organic growth, but to achieve that we’ll need to make further acquisitions.” The timeline she gave is aggressive: roughly three to five years to reach the target.
She noted that MTG had already pursued a similar goal in 2021, when the group tripled its revenue base. The mobile market, once characterized by double‑digit growth, has now settled into single‑digit expansion as the sector matures. What was once a blue ocean has turned increasingly red, meaning that future growth will likely come from capturing market share from rivals or absorbing them outright. While buying companies is relatively straightforward, integrating them is notoriously difficult, with many failed mergers resulting in studio closures.
Redin says MTG has a clear roadmap to avoid those pitfalls. Before buying Plarium, MTG already owned a portfolio of 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 studios were split into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District (midcore referring to games that sit between purely 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 bulk of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases. The rebranding is more than cosmetic. Redin wants to forge “one of the leading gaming villages,” a phrase she says is meant to evoke a community that people want to belong to.
Retaining talent and fostering a sense of belonging are central to this vision, especially given the rapid pace of recent acquisitions. “Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decisions,” Redin said.
“People are our biggest asset, but we must create an environment where they can thrive. When we acquire 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 further.” A key part of the integration effort has been the standardisation of technology and tools across the group.
Redin has pursued this agenda since becoming CEO in 2020, but she believes the Plarium deal gave MTG the scale needed to roll it out fully. She acknowledges the risks—citing EA’s problematic push to force all studios onto the Frostbite engine—but stresses that the tech stacks for Playsimple and Playamp are being handled separately. “Playsimple’s stack will become the foundation for future casual acquisitions, while for Midcore we’ve selected parts of Plarium’s tech suite to roll out selectively,” she explained.
“We’ve done 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 now being used across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance their utility. Redin says the goal is to allocate resources where they deliver the greatest return, leveraging the strong development talent already present in the group.
“With Playamp we want to super‑charge our studios with a tech suite they can leverage, elevating everything that’s already being done.” Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s strategy. InnoGames, for example, has been using AI to generate all content for its mobile title Sunrise Village and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across its portfolio.
Redin observes that AI is being woven into many production pipelines, from A/B testing and graphics creation to quality assurance. Successful AI tools from individual studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium‑derived tech suite, with a flexible framework that allows each studio to experiment while adhering to overarching guidelines. “When one studio develops a breakthrough, we can quickly roll it out across the group,” she noted.
When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creators, Redin was cautious. “I don’t think AI will do everything,” she said.
“Our talent’s creativity is still essential and not fully replicable by machines. But if we ignore AI, we’ll fall behind competitors. AI can fill capacity gaps—coding, art, analytics—and supercharge our output while preserving the human spark.” Revenue-wise, about 80 % now comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by the single studio in Playsimple. Redin is eager to broaden both sides, saying she would love to acquire several more studios like Snowprint and increase the scale of the casual side.
She hinted at the possibility of adding a third “district” to the gaming village, likely built around core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data infrastructure. Despite the market’s maturity, Redin believes evergreen IPs remain crucial. The top‑ten mobile games change little year over year, and MTG’s strategy has long been to back proven titles while still maintaining a pipeline of new releases.
Plarium, for instance, has a new game slated for a soft launch early next year. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of launching fresh hits, citing Supercell’s recent struggles with new titles, but argues that a steady flow of new games is necessary to keep the creative DNA of studios alive.
Looking ahead, Redin sees a market that still holds billions of players but will likely deliver low‑single‑digit to mid‑single‑digit growth rather than the hyper‑growth of earlier years. To exceed that baseline, MTG plans to double down on strong evergreen franchises while also bringing fresh experiences to market, supported by standardized technology, AI augmentation, and a culture that values both creativity and data‑driven efficiency.