In February of the previous year, 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 act in what MTG’s president and chief executive, Maria Redin, describes as a broader expansion plan. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s vision, set after the Plarium acquisition, is to double its size once more. “We set out the vision last year that post‑acquisition of Plarium we want to double yet again in size,” she explained, adding that organic growth will continue but that further acquisitions are essential to achieve the target.
The timeline is aggressive: Redin aims to hit the doubling milestone within three to five years. She noted that MTG had already pursued a similar ambition in 2021, during which the firm roughly tripled its scale. The mobile gaming sector, once characterized by rapid double‑digit expansion, has now settled into a more modest single‑digit growth trajectory, reflecting a maturing market.
What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped users has become a crowded red sea, where gaining market share often means buying competitors outright or integrating them into an existing portfolio. Acquisitions are relatively straightforward; the real challenge lies in merging the newly bought studios with the parent company. The industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed integrations that resulted in studio closures.
MTG, however, believes it has a solid blueprint. Before buying Plarium, the group already owned a suite of mobile developers, including InnoGames (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 – the latter covering games that sit between pure casual and hardcore experiences.
These districts have now 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 in‑app‑purchase‑driven portfolio that makes up the bulk of MTG’s revenue. The rebranding is more than cosmetic; Redin says the goal is to create “one of the leading gaming villages,” a community‑oriented environment meant to boost employee retention and foster a sense of belonging among the many teams that have been absorbed. "Gaming is the best marriage between creativity and data‑driven decisions," Redin said.
"People are our biggest asset, but we also need to give them a place where they can thrive. When we acquire a studio we want the founders and their teams to stay, because that’s when the real story begins and we can scale the business.
The only way to make that happen is to build an environment they enjoy." A key part of the post‑Plarium integration has been the standardisation of technology and tools across the group. Redin, who became CEO in 2020, has long championed a unified tech stack, but only after Plarium’s scale did MTG feel it could roll the vision out fully. She acknowledges the pitfalls of forced standardisation – citing EA’s problematic rollout of the Frostbite engine – but stresses that the needs of Playsimple and Playamp differ dramatically, so the two divisions are being equipped with separate, purpose‑built toolsets.
For the Midcore (Playamp) side, MTG has selected components of Plarium’s technology suite to share group‑wide, but the rollout is being done selectively after a thorough internal assessment of where collaboration makes sense. Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑data platform are already in use across the organisation, with additional features being added to enhance studio output. "We want to put our efforts where we get the biggest bang for our buck," Redin explained, noting that the Playamp tech suite is being super‑charged to elevate the work of the group’s talented developers.
Artificial intelligence is another pillar of MTG’s modernization drive. Generative AI is already reshaping content creation at InnoGames, where all assets for the mobile title Sunrise Village are produced with AI assistance, and the studio plans to broaden AI‑generated content across its portfolio. Redin sees this as part of a wider industry trend: AI is being woven into production pipelines for tasks such as A/B testing, graphics creation, quality assurance and more. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being incorporated into the Plarium‑derived tech suite for broader use.
"We need to allow our different studios to try different things, as long as they fit into our overarching AI framework on the dos and don’ts," she said. "Then we share the learnings, and when one company develops something really good, we can quickly roll it out at scale." When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creators, Redin was cautious. She believes creativity remains uniquely human and that AI cannot fully replicate it. However, she argues that ignoring AI would leave MTG trailing competitors, as the technology can accelerate development, fill capacity gaps, and enhance existing workflows.
Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income now comes from the Playamp division, with the casual side (Playsimple) contributing roughly 20 %. Redin is eager to broaden both sides, noting that the company bought Snowprint a few years ago and would welcome additional studios of that calibre. She also hinted at the possibility of a third “district” within the gaming village, potentially built around the group’s core capabilities in marketing and data. Despite the market’s maturity, Redin maintains that evergreen IPs remain vital.
The top‑ten mobile games change little year over year, and MTG’s strategy continues to focus on long‑lived titles like Raid, while also nurturing a pipeline of new releases. Plarium, for instance, has a fresh game slated for a soft launch early next year. The broader industry context is sobering: western mobile developers have struggled to launch billion‑dollar hits recently, and even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have produced mixed results.
Redin acknowledges the difficulty of creating and scaling new games, but stresses that a steady flow of fresh titles is essential to keep studio DNA alive, preserve creativity, and drive growth. In summary, Redin sees a market that, while no longer capable of the hyper‑growth of earlier years, still offers low‑single‑digit to mid‑single‑digit expansion opportunities.
To exceed that baseline, MTG will continue to double down on proven evergreen franchises while simultaneously investing in new IPs, leveraging standardized technology, and embracing AI to stay competitive in a crowded, fast‑moving mobile gaming landscape.