In February of the previous year, Sweden’s mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the wildly popular hero‑collecting title Raid: Shadow Legends. That deal, however, is only the opening act of what MTG’s chief executive, Maria Redin, describes as a much larger growth narrative. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s ambition, set after the Plarium acquisition, is to double its overall scale again within roughly three to five years.
“We set out the vision last year that after bringing Plarium into the fold we want to double yet again in size,” she said. “We’ll continue to drive organic growth, but to do that we’ll need to make more acquisitions.” The timeline is aggressive, yet Redin points out that MTG has already demonstrated the ability to expand quickly. The firm pursued a similar goal in 2021 and, according to her, succeeded in tripling its size. The mobile gaming market, which once grew at double‑digit rates, has now settled into single‑digit growth as the sector matures.
What was once a blue‑ocean landscape has turned decidedly red, meaning that future expansion will likely involve taking market share from rivals or absorbing them outright. Acquiring companies is the easy part; the real challenge lies in integrating them.
The industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed integrations that led to studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear roadmap. Before buying Plarium, the group already owned several mobile studios, 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 organized into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District, the latter covering games that sit between casual and hardcore experiences.
Following the acquisition, the districts were rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp. Playsimple, named after the India‑based WordTrip studio, houses free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp contains the majority of MTG’s portfolio—games that generate revenue primarily through in‑app purchases. The rebranding is more than cosmetic; Redin says the goal is to create “one of the leading gaming villages.” The term is meant to evoke a sense of community that encourages staff to stay and thrive, a crucial factor when a company is rapidly adding new studios.
Redin emphasizes that people are MTG’s greatest asset. “Gaming is the best marriage of creativity and data‑driven decisions,” she explained. “We buy companies because we want the founders and their teams to stay on board after the deal, as that’s when the real story begins and the business can scale.” To keep talent, the firm is focusing on building an environment that employees enjoy.
A parallel effort underway since Redin became CEO in 2020 is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group. The Plarium acquisition gave MTG the scale needed to roll out this vision fully. While tech harmonisation can be risky—EA’s push to force all studios onto the Frostbite engine caused significant friction—Redin notes that the needs of Playsimple differ markedly from those of Playamp, so the two divisions are being equipped with separate, appropriate tech stacks. For the Midcore side, MTG has selected components of Plarium’s technology suite to share group‑wide, but the rollout is selective.
“We’ve done a thorough internal assessment of where collaboration makes sense and where it doesn’t,” Redin said. Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page data system are already being used across the company, with additional features being added to enhance overall studio performance. Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s modernization push.
InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated content for its mobile title Sunrise Village and plans to broaden AI‑driven creation across its portfolio. Redin observes that AI is becoming embedded in many mobile development pipelines. “We’re all having similar discussions about how to adopt new technology in our production chain,” she noted, adding that generative AI is “significantly more powerful than any other tool we’ve had before.” The company’s approach is to layer AI onto existing workflows—A/B testing, graphics creation, quality assurance, and more—while allowing individual studios the freedom to experiment within a shared AI framework. Successful AI solutions from one studio are quickly propagated to others, accelerating innovation.
When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creators, Redin cautioned against such deterministic thinking. “Our talent’s creativity isn’t something AI can replicate yet,” she said. “But if we ignore AI, we’ll fall behind competitors. AI should augment, not replace, the imagination and vision of our teams.” She highlighted AI’s potential to address capacity shortfalls in coding, art, and complex logic, positioning it as a super‑charger for game development.
Revenue-wise, roughly 80 % of MTG’s earnings now come from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple. Redin is eager to expand both sides. She cited the recent Snowprint acquisition and expressed interest in finding “five more Snowprints” worldwide. On the casual front, she noted that Playsimple is currently a single studio but still contributes a sizable share of revenue, and she envisions adding a third district to the gaming village—potentially built around the core capabilities of MTG’s marketing and data platforms.
Despite the market’s maturity, Redin believes the top‑ten mobile games remain largely unchanged year after year, underscoring the value of evergreen IPs. “Our thesis from day one has been a belief in evergreen titles,” she affirmed, pointing to Raid’s long‑term potential.
Nevertheless, she stresses the importance of a fresh pipeline: “We need new games to keep the creative DNA alive.” Plarium, for instance, is preparing a new title for soft launch early next year. Industry observers like Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen warn that the Western mobile sector is “coasting,” with only a handful of new billion‑dollar games emerging from the West since 2020. Yet Redin remains optimistic.
“We have three billion gamers worldwide; it’s a compelling market,” she said. “Growth will be modest—low to mid single‑digit percentages—but if we continue to invest in strong evergreen IPs and bring fresh experiences to market, we can still achieve meaningful expansion.”