In February of last year, Swedish mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the developer behind the blockbuster hero‑collecting title Raid: Shadow Legends. That deal, however, is only the opening move in a broader expansion plan, according to Maria Redin, MTG’s president and chief executive. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s ambition, 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, adding that organic growth will continue but will need to be supplemented by further purchases. The timeline she outlined is aggressive: the goal is to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years. Redin noted that MTG has already demonstrated the capacity to meet lofty targets, pointing to a 2021 ambition that resulted in a tripling of the business. The mobile gaming sector, once characterized by double‑digit expansion, has now settled into single‑digit growth as the market matures.
What was once a blue ocean of untapped users has become a crowded red sea, where gaining market share often means acquiring competitors or integrating them into a larger ecosystem. While buying studios is relatively straightforward, the real challenge lies in merging them smoothly—a process that has tripped up many firms and led to studio closures. MTG believes it has a roadmap to avoid those pitfalls.
Before the Plarium deal, MTG already owned a portfolio of mobile studios, including InnoGames (creator of Forge of Empires), Snowprint (Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus), Hutch (F1 Clash), Ninja Kiwi (Bloons TD 6) and Futureplay (Merge Gardens). These studios were originally split into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District, the latter covering games that sit between casual and hardcore experiences. The districts have now been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp respectively.
Playsimple, named after the India‑based WordTrip studio, houses free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp contains the majority of MTG’s portfolio, focusing on games that generate revenue through in‑app purchases. The rebranding goes beyond a simple name change.
Redin explained that the company aims to create "one of the leading gaming villages," a phrase chosen to evoke a sense of community that employees want to belong to. Retaining talent and ensuring smooth integration are top priorities, especially given the rapid pace of acquisitions. "People are one of our biggest assets," Redin said, "but you also need to create an environment where they can thrive. We buy companies because we want the founders and teams to stay on board after the deal, as that is when the real story begins and we can scale the businesses.
The only way to keep them is to build a workplace they enjoy." A key part of the integration effort is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group. Redin has pursued this agenda since becoming CEO in 2020, but she noted that the Plarium acquisition gave MTG the scale needed to roll the vision out fully. The approach is cautious: rather than imposing a single tech stack on every studio, MTG tailors the tools to each district’s needs.
Playsimple’s technology will become the baseline for future casual acquisitions, while the Midcore (Playamp) side will adopt selected components of Plarium’s tech suite in a measured rollout. "We performed a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it does not," Redin explained.
Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑data platform are already being deployed across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality. The goal is to maximise the return on investment by giving studios a shared, high‑quality tech foundation that can accelerate development and improve performance.
Redin highlighted that the company wants to "supercharge" its Playamp studios with a robust tech suite that builds on what they already do well. Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s modernization strategy.
InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated content for its mobile title Sunrise Village and is exploring broader AI applications across its catalogue. Redin said AI is being woven into various production pipelines—A/B testing, graphics creation, quality assurance, and more.
Successful AI tools from individual studios are being incorporated into the Plarium‑derived tech suite, allowing best practices to spread quickly throughout the organisation. "We need to let studios experiment within our overarching AI framework, then share learnings and roll out the best solutions at scale," she noted. When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creativity, Redin cautioned against such a deterministic view.
She believes creativity remains a uniquely human strength that AI cannot fully replicate, but she also stresses that ignoring AI would leave MTG lagging behind competitors. "If we don’t embrace AI, we will be slower than the market," she said, adding that AI can help fill capacity gaps in coding, art, and complex logic, thereby accelerating game production without sacrificing creative vision. Financially, about 80 % of MTG’s revenue now comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple.
Redin expressed a desire to broaden both sides of the business. She cited Snowprint as a model, saying that acquiring five more studios with a similar profile would be ideal, and hinted at the possibility of adding a third district to the gaming village—potentially centred on marketing or data capabilities. Despite the market’s maturity, Redin remains confident about growth prospects. She observes that the top‑ten mobile games list changes little year over year, reinforcing the company’s belief in evergreen IPs.
While MTG continues to invest in proven titles like Raid, it also recognises the need for a fresh pipeline. Plarium, for instance, has a new game slated for soft launch early next year. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of launching successful new titles, citing industry examples such as Supercell’s recent struggles, but argues that a steady flow of new games is essential to preserve studio DNA, creativity, and passion.
In summary, MTG’s strategy under Maria Redin blends aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, technology standardisation, and AI‑enhanced development to double the company’s size within a few years. By fostering a collaborative "gaming village," retaining talent, and balancing evergreen franchises with new releases, MTG aims to navigate a saturated market while still achieving meaningful growth.