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.
Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s vision, set after the Plarium acquisition, is to double its overall size once again. “We set out the vision last year that post‑acquisition of Plarium we want to double yet again in size,” she said. “And yes, we want to fuel and continue to drive organic growth, but in order to do that, we will need to do more acquisitions.” The target timeline is aggressive: Redin aims to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years. She noted that MTG already pursued a similar ambition in 2021 and, according to her, succeeded in tripling its scale at that time.
The mobile gaming market, which once grew at double‑digit rates, has now settled into single‑digit growth, signalling a mature landscape. What was once an open blue ocean has turned a deep red, meaning that future expansion will likely involve capturing competitors’ market share—or absorbing them outright. Acquiring studios is the easy part; integrating them is where most companies stumble.
The industry is littered with cautionary tales of poorly managed mergers that end in studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear roadmap. Before buying Plarium, the group already owned a portfolio of mobile developers such as InnoGames (Forge of Empires), Snowprint (Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus), Hutch (F1 Clash), Ninja Kiwi (Bloons TD 6), and Futureplay (Merge Gardens).
These studios were previously divided into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District (midcore being games that sit between casual and hardcore experiences). These districts have now been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp, respectively. Playsimple—named after the Indian studio behind WordTrip—hosts free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp houses the majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases (IAPs). The renaming is more than cosmetic; Redin says the goal is to create “one of the leading gaming villages.” The term “village” is intended to evoke a sense of community that encourages staff to stay and thrive, a crucial factor when a company is rapidly adding new studios.
“Gaming is the best marriage between creativity and data‑driven decisions,” Redin explained. “People are one of our biggest assets, but you also need to create an environment for them to thrive in. We buy our companies, which also means that we want the founders and the teams to stay on board post‑acquisition, because that’s when the true exciting story should start and you continue to scale the businesses.” She stresses that retaining talent hinges on fostering a workplace that teams enjoy. A parallel effort underway since Redin became CEO in 2020 is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group.
The Plarium deal gave MTG the scale needed to roll out this vision fully. While tech harmonisation can be risky—EA’s push for the Frostbite engine across its studios famously caused turmoil—Redin says MTG is handling it with nuance.
Playsimple’s tech stack will serve as a foundation for future casual acquisitions, whereas the Midcore (Playamp) side will selectively adopt components of Plarium’s suite where they add clear value. “Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and PDP data platform are being used across MTG, but we’re also adding features and functionality to them,” Redin noted. “We want to make sure that we put our efforts where we get the biggest bang for our buck.” The aim is to boost the output of every studio, leveraging a shared tech backbone while allowing each team to retain its unique strengths. Artificial intelligence is another pillar of MTG’s growth strategy.
Generative AI is already reshaping content creation across the mobile sector. InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated assets for its game Sunrise Village and plans to expand AI‑driven production across its catalogue. Redin observes that many peers are having similar conversations about embedding AI into their pipelines. “We are all trying to find the right balance,” she said.
“How are you changing your workflow? Where do you not change the workflow? How do we find areas to do more? Because at the end of the day, it comes back to leveraging new tech to actually make our games more relevant for the players and, ideally, get new games to market faster and better.” MTG’s approach is to layer AI onto existing tools for tasks such as A/B testing, graphics generation, quality assurance, and analytics.
Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being folded into the broader Plarium tech suite, creating a feedback loop where innovations can be rapidly disseminated across the group. When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creativity, Redin was cautious. “I often get the question, is gaming AI going to be able to do everything you do?
I actually don’t think so. What’s important is that our talent has amazing creativity that doesn’t sit yet within AI.” Yet she warned that ignoring AI would leave MTG lagging behind competitors.
“If we don’t embrace AI, we are going to be slower than what our competitors are. AI can super‑charge everything we do while we keep the creativity, innovation, and vision of our team.” Financially, about 80 % of MTG’s revenue now comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple.
Redin is eager to broaden both sides of the business. She cites Snowprint as an example of a studio they would love to replicate globally and mentions the possibility of adding a third “district” to the gaming village, focused on core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data analytics. Despite the market’s maturity, Redin believes there is still room for growth.
“We have three billion gamers out there, so is it a compelling market? Yes,” she affirmed.
“Do we compete for airtime with streaming platforms, social media, and so forth? Yes. But I believe there’s still growth in the gaming market.” She cautions, however, that the era of hyper‑growth is over; most forecasts now predict low to mid‑single‑digit expansion. Consequently, MTG’s strategy blends investment in evergreen IPs—like Raid, which she expects to have many more profitable years ahead—with a continued pipeline of new titles.
Plarium, for instance, is preparing to soft‑launch a fresh game early next year. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of launching successful new games, citing Supercell’s recent struggles with its Squad Busters incubator, but she maintains that nurturing fresh concepts is essential to preserving each studio’s creative DNA. In summary, MTG’s roadmap under Maria Redin’s leadership combines aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, unified technology platforms, and strategic AI adoption. By rebranding its divisions, standardising tools, and fostering a collaborative “gaming village,” the company aims to double its size within the next few years while maintaining the creative spark that fuels its most popular titles.