In February of the previous 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 transaction, however, appears to be only the opening move in a broader expansion playbook. "Last year we articulated a vision that, following the Plarium acquisition, we intend to double our scale once more," MTG’s president and chief executive Maria Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. "We will keep driving organic growth, but achieving that will require further acquisitions." Redin’s timetable for this doubling is aggressive: she aims to reach the target within a three‑to‑five‑year window.
The Swedish group has already demonstrated an appetite for rapid scaling; Redin notes that the company set a similar ambition in 2021 and, in her words, "tripled" its size. A few years ago the mobile market was expanding at double‑digit rates, but growth has since slowed to single‑digit percentages, signalling a mature, highly competitive landscape. What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped users has turned decidedly red, meaning that future growth will often involve capturing market share from rivals or absorbing them outright. Acquiring studios is the easier half of the equation; integrating them successfully is notoriously difficult, and the industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed mergers that ended in studio closures.
MTG, however, believes it has a clear integration roadmap. Before buying Plarium, MTG already owned a portfolio of mobile developers, including InnoGames (known for 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”: the Casual District and the Midcore District—the latter covering games that sit between pure 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 majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases (IAPs). The rebranding is more than cosmetic. Redin says the goal is to create "one of the leading gaming villages," a phrase chosen to evoke a sense of community and belonging. The emphasis is on employee retention and cultural integration, crucial when a company is rapidly adding new studios.
"Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making," Redin explains. "People are our greatest asset, but we must also craft an environment where they can thrive. When we acquire a studio we want the founders and their teams to stay on board, because that is when the real story begins and the business can scale.
The only way to ensure they stay is to make the workplace enjoyable." Behind the scenes, MTG has been standardising technology and tools across its ecosystem. Redin notes that this effort began when she took the helm in 2020, but the Plarium deal gave the group sufficient scale to roll the vision out fully. She acknowledges the risks of blanket tech standardisation, citing Electronic Arts’ problematic push to force all studios onto the Frostbite engine, which caused major setbacks on projects like Mass Effect.
To avoid similar pitfalls, MTG treats the two districts separately. "Playsimple’s tech stack will become the foundation for any future casual studio we bring in," she says. "For Midcore, we have selected parts of Plarium’s technology suite to share group‑wide, but we are deploying it selectively to ensure the end result benefits every studio. We conducted a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it does not." Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system are already being leveraged across MTG, and the company is adding new features to enhance functionality.
Redin believes these shared tools will boost overall studio productivity. "We want to focus our resources where we get the biggest return," she says. "Playamp’s developers are already talented; we aim to supercharge them with a tech suite that elevates everything they already do." Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s strategy. InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated content for its mobile title Sunrise Village for some time and plans to broaden AI‑driven creation across its catalogue.
Redin observes that AI is becoming embedded in many mobile production pipelines. "Across the industry, we’re all having similar conversations about how to adopt new technology," she notes. "Generative AI is far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before.
The challenge is finding the right balance: which workflows should change, which should stay the same, and where AI can add the most value. Ultimately, it’s about using technology to make games more relevant to players and to accelerate delivery without sacrificing quality." MTG is focusing on integrating successful AI solutions from individual studios into the broader Plarium tech suite.
Redin stresses the importance of allowing each studio to experiment within an overarching AI framework, then sharing learnings quickly across the group. When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creators, Redin is cautious. "I often get asked if gaming AI will be able to do everything we do.
I don’t think so. The creativity of our talent is still beyond what AI can replicate. However, if we ignore AI we will fall behind competitors.
Embracing it lets us maintain our creative edge while gaining new efficiencies," she explains. She cites capacity constraints as a concrete example: AI can help fill gaps in analysis, coding, art production, and complex logic, effectively supercharging the development pipeline. Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income now stems from the Playamp division, with the casual side (Playsimple) contributing roughly 20 %. Redin is eager to expand both sides.
"We acquired Snowprint a few years ago; finding five more studios like Snowprint worldwide would be fantastic. On the casual front we’d like to add more scale," she says. Currently Playsimple is a single studio, but the company envisions adding a third district to its "gaming village" in the future, likely built around core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data analytics. Despite the rapid changes in the market, the top‑ten mobile games list remains relatively static.
Redin points out that the same titles dominate year after year, reinforcing MTG’s belief in evergreen intellectual property. "Our thesis from day one has been to invest in evergreen IPs," she says. While Raid: Shadow Legends still has many years of life ahead, MTG also recognises the need for a fresh pipeline of titles.
The broader industry context is challenging. Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen warned that Western mobile developers are "coasting," noting that only two of the 22 mobile games that have generated over $1 billion since 2020 originated in the West.
Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled, with projects like Squad Busters shutting down after a brief launch. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of launching successful new games but stresses that a pipeline is essential for long‑term vitality.
"If we stopped investing in new games, we would lose part of the DNA that fuels creativity and passion," she says. Plarium, for instance, has a new title slated for a soft launch early next year.
Looking ahead, Redin believes the market remains compelling despite its maturity. "There are three billion gamers worldwide, so the market is still attractive. We compete for attention with streaming services and social media, but I remain confident that growth is still possible," she asserts. She anticipates modest single‑digit growth rates and argues that exceeding those figures will require continued investment in strong evergreen franchises alongside the launch of fresh experiences.
In summary, MTG’s roadmap under Maria Redin’s leadership blends aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, technology standardisation, AI adoption, and a balanced focus on both proven evergreen titles and new game development. The company aims to double its size within five years, build a cohesive "gaming village" that retains talent, and leverage cutting‑edge tools to stay competitive in a saturated yet still expansive mobile gaming market.