In February of the previous year, the 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. That deal, however, is only the opening move in what MTG’s chief executive, Maria Redin, describes as an aggressive expansion plan.
Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s ambition, set after the Plarium acquisition, is to double its overall size once more. “We laid out the vision last year that after bringing Plarium into the fold we want to double again,” she explained. “We’ll continue to drive organic growth, but to achieve that we’ll need to make further acquisitions.” The timeline she cites is bold: MTG aims to hit the doubling target within three to five years. The firm has precedent for rapid scaling – Redin noted that a similar ambition in 2021 resulted in a tripling of the business.
The mobile gaming sector, once characterized by double‑digit growth, has now settled into a single‑digit expansion rate, reflecting a maturing market. What used to be a blue‑ocean of untapped users has turned decidedly red, meaning that future growth will likely come from capturing competitors’ market share or absorbing them outright.
Acquiring studios is the easy part; the real challenge lies in integrating them smoothly. The industry is littered with cautionary tales of mergers that led to studio closures because of poor integration. MTG, however, believes it has a clear roadmap. Before buying Plarium, MTG 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”: the Casual District and the Midcore District, the latter covering games that sit between pure casual and hardcore experiences. The districts have recently been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp, respectively. Playsimple—named after the Indian studio behind WordTrip—focuses on free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp houses the in‑app‑purchase‑driven games that make up the bulk of MTG’s portfolio. Redin says the rebranding is more than a cosmetic change; it is part of a broader effort to create “one of the leading gaming villages.” The name is meant to evoke a sense of community that encourages staff to stay and thrive.
“Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making,” she noted. “People are our greatest asset, but we must also build an environment where they can flourish. When we acquire a company, we want the founders and their teams to remain post‑deal because that’s when the real story begins and the business can scale.” A key pillar of the integration strategy is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group.
Redin has pursued this goal since becoming CEO in 2020, but she says the scale achieved with Plarium finally allowed MTG to roll the vision out fully. She acknowledges the risks—citing EA’s problematic push to force all studios onto the Frostbite engine—but stresses that the tech stacks for Playsimple and Playamp differ significantly and will be handled separately.
“For Playsimple, the tech stack will become the foundation for any future casual‑district acquisitions,” Redin explained. “For Midcore, we have selected portions of Plarium’s technology to deploy group‑wide, but we are rolling it out selectively to ensure the end result benefits every studio.” An internal assessment identified where sharing tools makes sense and where it does not.
Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page data system are already being used across MTG, and the company is adding new features to enhance them. Redin believes these upgrades will boost studio productivity: “We want to focus our efforts where we get the biggest bang for our buck.
Playamp will be super‑charged with a tech suite that elevates everything already in place.” Artificial intelligence is another major focus. InnoGames, for example, has been generating all content for its mobile title Sunrise Village with AI for some time and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across the studio. Redin says AI is becoming embedded in production pipelines throughout the mobile sector.
“Generative AI is far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before,” she said, noting that teams are experimenting with AI for A/B testing, graphics, quality assurance and more. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being folded into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid cross‑studio rollout of proven innovations. When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creativity, Redin cautioned against such a deterministic view. “Our talent’s imagination is still something AI can’t replicate,” she asserted.
“But if we ignore AI, we’ll fall behind competitors. AI should augment, not replace, the creative process—helping us fill capacity gaps in coding, art and complex logic.” Revenue-wise, roughly 80 % of MTG’s income now stems from the Playamp division, with the casual side (currently represented by a single studio, Playsimple) contributing about 20 %.
Redin is eager to broaden both districts: “We bought Snowprint a few years ago; finding five more studios like Snowprint worldwide would be fantastic. On the casual side we want more scale as well.” She also hinted at a possible third district, which would likely leverage the group’s core capabilities in marketing platforms or data analytics.
Despite the market’s maturity, the top‑ten mobile games list remains remarkably stable, reinforcing MTG’s belief in evergreen IPs. “Raid Shadow Legends still has many years ahead,” Redin said, while acknowledging the need for a fresh pipeline. Plarium is preparing a new title for a soft launch early next year, and MTG continues to scout for promising concepts. Industry observers warn that the western mobile market is “coasting,” with only two of the 22 billion‑dollar titles since 2020 originating from the West.
Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled, as illustrated by the recent shutdown of Squad Busters. Redin agrees that creating and scaling a hit game is difficult, but she stresses that investing in new titles preserves the creative DNA of each studio and fuels long‑term growth. Looking ahead, Redin sees a market still worth pursuing. “There are three billion gamers worldwide, so it remains a compelling space,” she affirmed.
“Growth rates may have slipped to low or mid‑single digits, but if we want to exceed that, we must double‑down on strong evergreen IPs while also bringing fresh experiences to market.”