In February of last year, Swedish mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the wildly popular hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. According to Maria Redin, MTG’s president and chief executive, that deal is only 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 our size again," Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. "We’ll keep driving organic growth, but to do that we’ll need to make additional acquisitions." The timeline she cites is aggressive: the aim is to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years. Redin notes that MTG has already proven capable of rapid expansion – the company set a similar target in 2021 and, in her words, "tripled" its scale.
A few years ago the mobile gaming market was still expanding at double‑digit rates, but growth has since slowed to single‑digit percentages, signalling a mature sector. What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped users has turned a deep red, meaning that future growth will largely come from taking market share from competitors or absorbing them entirely.
Acquiring studios is the easy half of the equation; integrating them successfully is where many companies stumble. The industry is littered with cautionary tales of mergers that resulted in studio closures because cultural and technical integration failed.
MTG, however, believes it has a clear roadmap. Before the Plarium deal, MTG already owned a portfolio of mobile developers, 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 grouped into two "districts": a Casual District and a Midcore District (midcore being 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, houses free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp contains the majority of MTG’s portfolio – games that rely on in‑app purchases. The rebranding is more than a cosmetic change.
Redin says the goal is to build "one of the leading gaming villages," a phrase chosen deliberately to foster a sense of belonging among employees. Retaining talent and ensuring smooth integration are critical when a company grows by buying many studios in quick succession. "Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making," Redin explains. "People are our biggest asset, but they need 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 keep them is to create a workplace they enjoy." Behind the scenes, MTG has been standardising technology and tools across its portfolio. Redin says the push for common tech stacks began when she became CEO in 2020, but the scale required to roll it out fully only arrived with Plarium’s acquisition. The aim is not to force every studio to use the same bespoke solutions, but to provide a shared foundation where it makes sense.
The industry has seen the downside of forced standardisation. Electronic Arts, for example, struggled when it mandated the use of its Frostbite engine across studios, creating friction on projects like Mass Effect.
Redin acknowledges those lessons and points out that the needs of Playsimple and Playamp differ dramatically, so the two divisions are being equipped with separate, appropriate toolsets. "Playsimple’s tech stack will become the baseline for any future casual‑district studio we bring in," she says.
"For Midcore we’ve selected parts of Plarium’s technology to roll out group‑wide, but we’re doing it selectively to ensure the end result benefits every studio. We performed a thorough internal audit to decide where sharing tools makes sense and where it doesn’t." Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page data system are already being deployed across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality. Redin believes this will boost the output of all studios, allowing them to focus effort where it yields the greatest return. Artificial intelligence is another pillar of MTG’s future strategy.
InnoGames, for instance, has been using AI‑generated content for its mobile title Sunrise Village for some time and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across its catalogue. Redin says AI is becoming embedded in production pipelines across the mobile sector. "Most of the people I talk to are having the same conversations about how to adopt new tech," 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 boost?
Ultimately it’s about making our games more relevant to players and, ideally, bringing new titles to market faster and better." MTG is layering 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, allowing rapid dissemination of best practices. When asked whether AI is now indispensable for competing in the mobile market, Redin cautions against fatalism.
"I often get asked if gaming AI will replace everything we do. I don’t think so.
Creativity is still a uniquely human trait. But if we ignore AI we’ll fall behind competitors. Embracing it lets us maintain our creative vision while leveraging new levels of efficiency." Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple. Redin is eager to grow both sides.
She cites Snowprint as an example of a studio she would like to replicate globally, saying, "If we could find five more Snowprints around the world, that would be fantastic." Looking ahead, Redin hints at the possibility of adding a third "district" to the gaming village, though its exact focus is still being defined. It would likely build on existing core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data analytics. Despite the market’s maturity, Redin believes evergreen IPs will continue to dominate the top‑ten mobile charts, which change little year over year. Nevertheless, she stresses the importance of a fresh pipeline.
"Raid has many years left, but we still need new games. Without a pipeline, we lose the creative DNA that fuels our studios," she says. Industry observers like Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen warn that the Western mobile scene is "coasting," with only two of the 22 titles that have surpassed $1 billion since 2020 originating from the West.
Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled, as illustrated by the recent shutdown of Squad Busters. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of launching successful new titles but remains optimistic. Plarium is preparing to soft‑launch a new game early next year, and she views such launches as essential for sustaining growth in a market that now yields low‑single‑digit to mid‑single‑digit expansion.
In summary, MTG’s strategy blends aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, technology standardisation, AI adoption, and a balanced portfolio of evergreen and emerging titles. By nurturing a collaborative "gaming village" culture and leveraging shared tools, the company aims to double its size within the next few years while staying competitive in an increasingly saturated mobile landscape.