Maria Redin of MTG Discusses Rebranding, the Raid: Shadow Legends Acquisition, and Ambitions to Double Company Size

In February of last year, Sweden’s 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 was only the opening move in a broader expansion plan.

Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s vision, set out after the Plarium transaction, is to double its overall size again within roughly three to five years. “We want to keep driving organic growth, but to do that we’ll need to make additional acquisitions,” she explained. The ambition is not new – MTG aimed for a similar scale‑up in 2021 and, as Redin noted, the group actually tripled its size during that period.

The mobile gaming market, which a few years ago was expanding at double‑digit rates, has now settled into single‑digit growth as the sector matures. What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped users has turned into a highly competitive red ocean where any further expansion typically requires taking market share from rivals or absorbing them outright. Acquiring studios is the easier half of the equation; the real challenge lies in integrating those companies without disrupting their creative engines.

The industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed mergers that led to studio closures. MTG entered the acquisition arena already owning 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). Historically, these studios were split into two “districts”: the Casual District for lighter, ad‑supported games and the Midcore District for titles that sit between casual and hardcore experiences and rely primarily on in‑app purchases (IAPs). The recent rebranding renamed these groups Playsimple – after the Indian studio behind WordTrip – and Playamp, respectively.

Playsimple now houses the ad‑driven free‑to‑play titles, while Playamp contains the IAP‑focused portfolio that makes up the bulk of MTG’s revenue. Beyond a cosmetic rename, Redin says the objective is to forge “one of the leading gaming villages.” The terminology is intentional; she wants to cultivate an environment that people are eager to join and stay in.

Retaining talent is especially critical for a company that has been rapidly adding new studios. “Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decisions,” Redin said. “People are our biggest asset, but we also have to give them a place where they can thrive.” She emphasized that when MTG acquires a studio, the goal is for the founders and their teams to remain post‑deal, because the real growth story begins after the acquisition. A key part of the post‑Plarium integration has been the standardisation of technology and tools across the group.

Redin has pursued this tech harmonisation since becoming CEO in 2020, but she believes the scale provided by the Plarium purchase finally allowed the vision to be fully realised. The plan is not to force every studio onto a single platform; instead, MTG tailors the tech stack to the needs of each district.

Playsimple’s infrastructure will serve as the baseline for future casual acquisitions, while the Midcore side will adopt selected components of Plarium’s suite, rolled out selectively after a thorough internal assessment of where shared tools make sense. Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and its product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system are already being deployed across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality. Redin expects these shared resources to boost the output of all studios, allowing the group to focus on initiatives that deliver the highest return on investment.

“We have amazing game makers across the group. With Playamp we want to super‑charge them with a tech suite they can leverage, elevating everything that’s already being done,” she explained. Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s current strategy.

The technology is reshaping content creation across the mobile sector. InnoGames, for example, has been using AI to generate all of the assets for its Sunrise Village title and is looking to expand AI‑driven content creation throughout the studio.

Redin sees this as part of a broader industry trend: “Most of the people I talk to are having similar discussions about how we embrace new technology in our production chain.” She described generative AI as “significantly more powerful than any tool we’ve had before,” and stressed the need to find a balance between automation and human creativity. The company’s AI roadmap focuses on layering artificial intelligence onto existing pipelines for tasks such as A/B testing, graphics generation, quality assurance, and analytics. Successful AI solutions from individual MTG studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid diffusion of best practices.

“We need to let our studios experiment within an overarching AI framework, share learnings, and then roll out the most effective innovations at scale,” Redin said. When asked whether AI will eventually replace human developers, Redin was cautious.

She believes that while AI can accelerate production and fill capacity gaps, it cannot replicate the spark of human imagination. “Our talent’s creativity is something AI doesn’t have yet,” she noted. Yet she warned that ignoring AI would leave MTG lagging behind competitors, so the firm is committed to using the technology as a force multiplier rather than a substitute. Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s earnings now come from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple.

Redin is eager to broaden both sides of the business. She cited Snowprint as a recent acquisition and expressed interest in finding “five more Snowprints around the world.” On the casual front, she hopes to add further studios to increase scale.

Although Playsimple currently consists of a single studio, Redin hinted at the possibility of a third district in the future – a unit that would likely centre around the group’s core capabilities in marketing platforms or data analytics. Despite the rapid changes in the market, the top‑ten mobile games list remains relatively stable, reinforcing MTG’s long‑standing belief in evergreen intellectual properties. “Every year we do the same analysis and see that the top games stay consistent,” Redin observed.

The company therefore continues to invest heavily in proven titles like Raid, while also nurturing a pipeline of new games. Plarium, for instance, has a fresh title slated for a soft launch early next year. The broader industry context is sobering. Supercell’s CEO Ilkka Paananen has warned that western mobile developers are “coasting,” noting that only two of the 22 mobile games that have surpassed $1 billion in revenue since 2020 originated in the West.

Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled, with projects such as Squad Busters being discontinued after a brief run. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of creating and scaling hit games but insists that a continuous flow of new titles is essential to preserve studio DNA, creativity, and passion.

She sees new releases as a crucial lever for growth in a market that has moved from hyper‑growth to modest, single‑digit expansion. “We have three billion gamers worldwide, so the market is still compelling,” she said. “We won’t see the explosive growth of the past, but by investing in strong evergreen IPs and bringing fresh games to market, we can still achieve meaningful growth.”