In February of the previous year, Sweden’s 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 a broader expansion plan, according to MTG’s president and chief executive, Maria Redin. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s ambition, set after the Plarium acquisition, is to double its overall size once again.
“We laid out the vision last year that, following the Plarium deal, we want to double again,” she explained. “We will keep driving organic growth, but to reach that goal we will need to make additional acquisitions.” The timeline she proposes is aggressive: the target is to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years. Redin noted that MTG has already demonstrated the ability to meet lofty goals, recalling a 2021 objective that resulted in a tripling of the firm’s scale. A few years ago the mobile sector was expanding at double‑digit rates, but growth has now settled into single‑digit territory, reflecting a market that is maturing quickly.
What was once a blue‑ocean landscape has become a crowded, competitive arena where growth often means taking market share from rivals or absorbing them outright. Acquiring other studios is the easier half of the equation; integrating those businesses into a cohesive whole is where many companies stumble, and the industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed mergers that led to studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear integration roadmap.
Before buying Plarium, MTG already owned a collection of mobile developers, 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 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 renamed Playsimple and Playamp.
Playsimple, named after the Indian studio behind WordTrip, houses free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp contains the portfolio of games that rely primarily on in‑app purchases. Redin says the rebranding is only the surface of a deeper cultural shift. Her goal is to build “one of the leading gaming villages,” a term chosen deliberately to evoke a sense of community and belonging.
The emphasis is on retaining talent and ensuring smooth integration, especially important given the rapid pace of recent acquisitions. “Gaming is the perfect marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making,” she said. “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 and we can scale the business together.
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—a project that began when Redin took the helm in 2020 but only gained sufficient scale after Plarium joined. The idea is not to force every studio to use the same bespoke solutions, but to provide shared foundations where they make sense. Redin acknowledges past industry missteps, such as Electronic Arts’ push for all studios to adopt the Frostbite engine, which caused considerable friction.
She stresses that the tech stacks for Playsimple and Playamp differ dramatically, so each district receives a tailored approach. For the casual side, Playsimple’s technology will become the baseline for any future studio that joins that district. In the midcore arena, MTG has selected components of Plarium’s tech suite to roll out company‑wide, but only after a careful internal audit identified where collaboration would add value and where it would not. Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page data system are already being used across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality.
The overarching aim is to allocate resources where they generate the greatest return. “We want to focus our efforts on the biggest bang for our buck,” Redin said. “We have fantastic game makers across the group, and with Playamp we intend to super‑charge them with a robust tech suite that elevates what they already do.” Artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, is another pillar of MTG’s strategy. InnoGames, for example, has been generating all content for its mobile title Sunrise Village with AI for some time and is looking to broaden AI‑driven creation across its portfolio.
Redin observes that AI is becoming embedded in production pipelines throughout the mobile sector. “Most of the people I talk to are having the same conversations about how to adopt new technology,” she noted, adding that generative AI is “far more powerful than any tool we’ve had before.” She explained that MTG is experimenting with AI layers for A/B testing, graphics creation, quality assurance and other workflows. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid diffusion of best practices.
“We let studios try different approaches as long as they fit within our overarching AI framework. When one team builds something great, we can roll it out across the company quickly.” When asked whether AI is now a prerequisite for competing in the fast‑moving mobile market, Redin cautioned against over‑hyping the technology. “I get the question whether gaming AI will eventually replace everything we do, and I don’t think so,” she said. “Creativity and human talent are still essential and cannot be fully replicated by AI.
However, if we ignore AI we will fall behind competitors. AI can accelerate development, fill capacity gaps, and help us deliver better games faster.” Currently about 80 % of MTG’s revenue is generated by the Playamp division, with the casual Playsimple unit accounting for roughly the remaining 20 %. Redin is eager to expand both sides. She cited Snowprint as an example of a studio they would love to replicate globally, and she hinted at the possibility of adding a third “district” to the gaming village, likely built around core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data analytics.
Despite the market’s maturity, Redin believes the top‑ten mobile games remain relatively stable year after year, reinforcing MTG’s long‑standing belief in evergreen IPs. While Raid : Shadow Legends still has many years of life ahead, the company also recognises the need for a fresh pipeline. Plarium is preparing to soft‑launch a new title early next year, and Redin stressed that neglecting new development would erode the creative DNA of the studios.
The broader industry context is sobering: Western mobile developers have struggled to produce billion‑dollar hits recently, and even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have yielded mixed results. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of launching and scaling new games, but she maintains that a balanced approach—investing in proven evergreen titles while nurturing new IPs—is essential for sustained growth.
In summary, Maria Redin’s vision for MTG combines aggressive acquisition, thoughtful rebranding, technology standardisation, and strategic AI adoption, all aimed at doubling the company’s size within a few years while preserving the creative spirit that fuels its studios.