Maria Redin of MTG Discusses Rebranding, Acquiring Raid: Shadow Legends, and Plans to Double Company Scale

In February of last year, the Swedish mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the wildly popular hero‑collection game Raid: Shadow Legends. According to Maria Redin, MTG’s president and chief executive, that deal was only the opening move in a much larger plan.

“We laid out a vision last year that, after bringing Plarium into the fold, we want to double the size of the group again,” Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. “We’ll keep pushing organic growth, but to do that we’ll need to make more acquisitions.” The timeline she cites is bold: the company aims to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years.

Redin notes that MTG has already demonstrated an ability to scale quickly—its 2021 ambition led to a tripling of the business. The mobile gaming landscape has shifted dramatically in recent years. A few years ago, the sector enjoyed double‑digit growth rates, but today that momentum has slowed to single‑digit figures, reflecting a market that is maturing rapidly. What was once a blue‑ocean of untapped opportunity has turned into a crowded red sea, where expansion often means taking market share from rivals or absorbing them outright.

Acquiring studios is the easy part; integrating them is where many companies stumble. The industry is littered with stories of poorly executed mergers that resulted in studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear integration roadmap.

Before the Plarium deal, MTG 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. The districts have now been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp, respectively. Playsimple, named after the India‑based WordTrip studio, houses free‑to‑play, ad‑driven titles, while Playamp focuses on games that rely primarily on in‑app purchases, which constitute the bulk of MTG’s revenue.

Redin says the rebranding goes beyond a simple name change. The goal is to create “one of the leading gaming villages,” a phrase chosen deliberately to foster a sense of community and belonging. Retaining talent and ensuring smooth cultural integration are top priorities for a company that has been on an acquisition spree. "Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making," Redin explains.

"People are our biggest asset, but we also need to give them an environment where they can thrive. When we acquire a studio, we want the founders and their teams to stay on board, because that’s when the real story begins and we can scale the business further. The only way to keep them is to create a workplace they enjoy." Behind the scenes, MTG has been standardizing technology and tools across its portfolio—a strategy Redin began pursuing when she became CEO in 2020. She notes that the Plarium acquisition gave the group the scale needed to roll out this vision fully.

The company is careful not to repeat the pitfalls seen elsewhere; for example, Electronic Arts’ forced adoption of the Frostbite engine caused major headaches for studios working on titles like Mass Effect. To avoid similar issues, MTG treats the tech needs of Playsimple and Playamp separately. "Playsimple’s stack will become the foundation for any future casual‑district acquisitions," Redin says.

"For Midcore, we’ve selected parts of Plarium’s tech suite to use group‑wide, but we’re rolling it out selectively to ensure it benefits every studio. We’ve done a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it doesn’t." Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system are already being deployed across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality.

Redin believes this shared infrastructure will raise the overall output of all studios. "We want to invest where we get the biggest bang for our buck," she says. "Playamp’s developers are already excellent, and we’re now giving them a tech suite that amplifies what they’re doing." Generative AI is another pillar of MTG’s modernization effort.

InnoGames, for instance, has been using AI‑generated content for its mobile title Sunrise Village and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across its portfolio. Redin observes that AI is becoming embedded in production pipelines throughout the mobile sector. "Most of the industry is having the same conversations about how to adopt new technology," she notes.

"Generative AI is far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before. The challenge is finding the right balance—where to adjust workflows, where to keep them unchanged, and where AI can add the most value.

Ultimately, it’s about using technology to make our games more relevant to players and to accelerate and improve our release cadence." MTG is adding AI layers to existing tools for tasks such as A/B testing, graphics creation, quality assurance, and more. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid diffusion of best practices.

When asked whether AI will eventually replace human creativity, Redin is cautious. "I don’t think AI will do everything we do," she says. "Our talent’s creativity is still something AI can’t replicate.

But if we ignore AI, we’ll fall behind competitors. Embracing it lets us keep our creative vision while leveraging new levels of efficiency." Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income now comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by the casual side, which currently consists of a single studio—Playsimple. Redin is eager to broaden both sides.

"We acquired Snowprint a few years ago; finding five more studios like that would be fantastic. On the casual front we’d like more scale as well," she says.

She also hints at the possibility of adding a third district to the gaming village, though the exact focus is still being defined. It would likely build on existing capabilities, such as leveraging the shared marketing platform or data assets. Regarding the game pipeline, Redin stresses that the top‑ten mobile titles remain remarkably stable year after year.

MTG’s strategy has always centered on evergreen IPs—games that generate revenue over many years. While Raid: Shadow Legends still has a long runway, the company also recognizes the need for fresh titles to keep the creative engine humming. The broader market context is challenging.

Western mobile developers have struggled to produce new billion‑dollar hits, and even industry leaders like Supercell have seen limited success with recent incubated projects. Redin acknowledges the difficulty: "It’s hard to make a successful game and then scale it," she says, noting that Plarium has a new title slated for soft launch early next year. Nevertheless, she believes new games are essential for long‑term growth.

"If we stop investing in new titles, we lose a part of each studio’s DNA—creativity, passion, drive," Redin argues. She sees the market as still compelling: three billion gamers worldwide provide ample opportunity, even if growth rates have settled into low‑ to mid‑single‑digit territory. In summary, MTG’s roadmap combines aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, technology standardization, AI adoption, and a balanced portfolio of evergreen and emerging IPs. By building a cohesive "gaming village" that values both people and tools, the company aims to double its size within the next few years while navigating a maturing mobile landscape.