In February of last year, Swedish mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the studio behind the blockbuster hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. According to Maria Redin, MTG’s president and chief executive, that deal is only the opening move in a much larger plan. "Last year we set a vision that, following the Plarium acquisition, we want to double our scale again," Redin told GamesIndustry.biz. "We’ll keep driving organic growth, but to hit that target we’ll need to pursue further acquisitions as well." The timetable Redin proposes is aggressive: she aims to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years.
She notes that MTG has already demonstrated the ability to meet bold goals, pointing to a 2021 ambition that resulted in a tripling of the company’s size. 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 highly competitive red‑sea, where growth often means taking market share from rivals or absorbing them entirely.
Acquiring studios is the easier half of the equation; integrating them successfully is where many companies stumble, leading to studio closures and lost talent. MTG, however, believes it has a clear integration 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”: a Casual District and a Midcore District (midcore referring to 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, focuses on free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp houses the majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases. The rebranding is more than a cosmetic change.
Redin says the goal is to create "one of the leading gaming villages," a term chosen deliberately to evoke a sense of community that staff want to belong to. 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 explained. "People are our biggest asset, but we must also provide 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 make that happen 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 shared foundation can accelerate development and reduce costs. This standardisation effort began when she took the helm in 2020, but the scale required to roll it out fully only arrived after the Plarium deal. The company is careful not to repeat the pitfalls seen elsewhere.
Electronic Arts, for example, forced its studios to adopt the Frostbite engine, creating friction and delays on projects like Mass Effect. MTG distinguishes between the needs of Playsimple and Playamp, treating each division’s tech requirements separately.
Playsimple’s stack will become the baseline for future casual acquisitions, while Playamp will adopt selected components of Plarium’s technology, deployed selectively after a thorough internal assessment of where collaboration makes sense. Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and its product‑detail‑page data suite are now used across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality.
Redin believes this shared infrastructure will boost output across all studios: "We want to focus our efforts where we get the biggest bang for our buck. The Playamp group will be super‑charged with a tech suite that elevates what’s already being done." Generative AI is also reshaping MTG’s workflow.
InnoGames, for instance, has been using AI to generate all content for its mobile title Sunrise Village and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across its portfolio. Redin says the industry is having similar conversations about embedding AI into production pipelines.
She describes AI as "significantly more powerful than any tool we’ve had before" and stresses the need to strike a balance: using AI for tasks like A/B testing, graphics, QA and analytics while preserving the human creativity that drives game design. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being folded into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid dissemination of best practices. "We let studios experiment within our AI framework, share learnings, and then roll out the winning approaches company‑wide," Redin explained.
When asked whether AI is now a prerequisite for competing in mobile gaming, Redin cautioned against overstatement. "I don’t think AI will replace human creativity," she said. "But ignoring AI would leave us trailing competitors. It can fill capacity gaps, speed up development, and enhance quality, but the core of great games still comes from talented people." Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income now stems from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by the single casual studio, Playsimple.
Redin is eager to broaden both sides: "We bought Snowprint a few years ago; finding five more studios like that would be fantastic. On the casual side we’d like to add scale as well." Looking ahead, Redin hints at a possible third district that would build on MTG’s existing marketing and data capabilities, though details remain undefined.
She believes the mobile top‑ten games list changes very little each year, underscoring the importance of evergreen IPs. While Raid: Shadow Legends still has many years of revenue ahead, MTG continues to invest in new titles to keep its pipeline fresh. The broader market context is sobering. The western mobile sector is perceived as "coasting" – only two of the 22 titles that have crossed $1 billion since 2020 originated in the West.
Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled, with projects like Squad Busters being discontinued after launch. Redin acknowledges the difficulty: "It’s hard to make a successful game and scale it, but abandoning new‑game investment would strip studios of their creative DNA." Ultimately, Redin sees growth opportunities despite a maturing market. With three billion gamers worldwide, the sector remains compelling, even as it competes for attention with streaming services and social media. She expects growth to settle in low‑ to mid‑single‑digit percentages, and believes that sustained investment in strong evergreen franchises combined with a steady flow of fresh titles is the formula for continued success.