In February of the previous year, Sweden’s mobile entertainment titan Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the developer behind the blockbuster hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. That deal, however, appears to be just the opening move in a broader expansion playbook. "Last year we set a vision that, following the Plarium acquisition, we want to double our size again," MTG’s president and chief executive Maria Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. "We intend to keep driving organic growth, but to do that we’ll need to make further acquisitions." Redin’s timeline is aggressive: she aims to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years.
The Swedish group already has a track record of rapid scaling – Redin noted that the same ambition was set in 2021, and the company actually tripled in size after that. A few years ago the mobile sector was expanding at double‑digit rates, but growth has now settled into single‑digit territory, signalling a market that is maturing quickly. What was once a blue‑ocean landscape has turned a deep red, meaning that future expansion will largely depend on capturing competitors’ market share – either by out‑performing them or by absorbing them outright.
Acquiring studios is the easy part; integrating them is where most firms stumble. The games industry is littered with cautionary tales of poorly managed mergers that end in studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear integration roadmap.
Before buying Plarium, MTG already owned a portfolio of mobile developers such as 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 grouped into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District – the latter covering games that sit between pure 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 contains the bulk of MTG’s portfolio, focusing on games that generate revenue through in‑app purchases.
The rebranding goes beyond a name change. Redin says the ambition is to forge "one of the leading gaming villages," a phrase chosen deliberately to evoke a sense of community and belonging. The emphasis is on retaining talent and ensuring smooth cultural integration, a critical concern for a company that has been on an acquisition binge. "Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making," Redin explained.
"People are our greatest asset, but we must also create 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 – scaling the business.
The only way to keep them is to build a workplace they enjoy." Behind the scenes, MTG has been standardising technology and tools across its portfolio. Redin notes that not every studio needs a bespoke tech stack; a unified approach can generate efficiencies. This standardisation effort began when she became CEO in 2020, but it wasn’t until Plarium’s scale was added that the vision could be fully realised. The pitfalls of forced tech uniformity are well known – EA’s push to adopt its Frostbite engine caused major headaches for teams working on titles like Mass Effect.
Redin is mindful of those lessons and stresses that the tech needs of Playsimple differ dramatically from those of Playamp, so the two divisions are being treated separately. "Playsimple’s stack will become the foundation for any future casual‑district acquisitions," she said. "For Midcore, we’ve selected parts of Plarium’s tech suite to roll out group‑wide, but we’re doing it selectively to ensure the end result benefits all studios.
We conducted a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration on tools makes sense and where it does not." Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and its product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system are already being deployed across MTG, and Redin says the company is adding new features to enhance them. The goal is to boost the productivity of every studio. "We want to focus our effort where we get the biggest bang for our buck," she said. "Playamp studios will be super‑charged with a tech suite that elevates what they already do well." Generative AI is also reshaping MTG’s workflow, mirroring a broader trend in mobile gaming.
InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated content for its Sunrise Village title for some time and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across its portfolio. Redin observes that many industry peers are having similar conversations about embedding AI into production pipelines.
"Generative AI is far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before," she noted. "We’re figuring out how to balance it – where to adjust our workflow, where to keep the process unchanged, and where to double‑down on AI to make games more relevant for players and to accelerate delivery without sacrificing quality." The company is layering AI onto existing tools for tasks such as A/B testing, graphics creation, quality assurance, and more. Successful AI solutions from individual MTG studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid diffusion of best practices. When asked whether AI is now a prerequisite for competing in the fast‑moving mobile market, Redin cautioned against over‑hyping it.
"I often get asked if gaming AI will replace everything we do, and I don’t think so. Creative talent remains essential and is not yet replicable by AI.
However, ignoring AI would leave us trailing our competitors. Embracing it lets us maintain pace and even accelerate." She highlighted that AI can help address capacity shortfalls in coding, art, and complex logic, effectively supercharging the development engine while preserving human creativity and vision. Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s earnings now come from the Playamp division, with the casual side (Playsimple) contributing roughly 20 %. Redin is eager to broaden both sides.
"We acquired Snowprint a few years ago; if we could find five more studios like Snowprint worldwide, that would be fantastic. On the casual front we’d like to add more scale," she said. Currently Playsimple is a single studio, but the company envisions adding a third district to the gaming village, potentially centred around core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data analytics.
Regarding the game pipeline, Redin acknowledges that the mobile top‑ten chart changes little year after year. "Our thesis from day one has been to focus on evergreen IPs," she said, citing Raid’s long‑term potential. Yet she also stresses the importance of a fresh pipeline: "We must keep launching new games to sustain creativity and passion within our studios." The broader market context is challenging.
While the mobile sector still boasts three billion players worldwide, growth has slowed to low‑single‑digit or mid‑single‑digit percentages. Redin believes there is still room for expansion, but it will require a balanced mix of strong evergreen titles and new releases to drive growth beyond the modest baseline.
In summary, MTG under Maria Redin’s leadership is pursuing a multi‑pronged strategy: aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, unified technology, AI‑enhanced workflows, and a dual focus on sustaining evergreen franchises while nurturing new IPs. The aim is to double the company’s size within the next few years and cement its position as a leading “gaming village” in a mature, highly competitive mobile landscape.