In February of the previous year, Sweden’s mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million purchase of Plarium, the developer behind the wildly popular hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. According to Maria Redin, MTG’s president and chief executive, that deal was only the opening move in a much larger growth play. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company set a vision last year to double its scale once more after the Plarium acquisition, and that achieving this ambition will require a blend of organic expansion and further strategic purchases. She estimates the target—doubling the firm’s size—could be reached within a three‑to‑five‑year window.
The Swedish group has already demonstrated the ability to deliver bold growth: a similar goal set in 2021 resulted in the company tripling its size. The mobile gaming sector, which a few years ago was expanding at double‑digit rates, has now settled into a slower, single‑digit growth rhythm as the market matures.
What was once an open ocean of opportunity has become a crowded, competitive arena where gaining market share often means acquiring rivals or absorbing their portfolios. Acquisitions are the easy part; integrating new studios into an existing corporate structure is notoriously difficult. The industry is littered with cautionary tales of mergers that faltered, leading to studio closures and wasted talent. MTG, however, believes it has a clear integration roadmap.
Before buying Plarium, MTG already owned a suite 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 casual and hardcore experiences.
The districts have since been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp. Playsimple, named after the India‑based WordTrip studio, focuses on free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp houses the in‑app‑purchase‑driven games that now make up the bulk of MTG’s portfolio.
Redin says the rebranding is more than cosmetic; the aim is to create “one of the leading gaming villages.” The term village is intended to evoke a sense of community that encourages staff to stay and thrive. She stresses that people are MTG’s greatest asset, and that retaining founders and development teams after an acquisition is essential for unlocking the true growth potential of each studio. A key element of the integration plan is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group.
Redin notes that not every studio needs a bespoke tech stack; a shared foundation can accelerate development and reduce duplication. While the push for standardisation began when she took the helm in 2020, the scale provided by the Plarium deal finally allowed MTG to roll the vision out fully. The company is careful to avoid the pitfalls seen elsewhere.
For example, Electronic Arts’ forced adoption of its Frostbite engine caused significant disruption for studios working on titles such as Mass Effect. MTG’s approach recognises that the needs of Playsimple and Playamp differ dramatically. Consequently, the casual district will use a tech stack built around Playsimple’s requirements, whereas the midcore district will selectively adopt components of Plarium’s technology suite, after a thorough internal assessment of where shared tools make sense.
Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page data system have already been deployed across MTG, with additional features being added to enhance functionality. Redin explains that the goal is to focus resources where they deliver the greatest return, supercharging the already strong game‑making talent within the Playamp division with a robust, shared technology suite. Generative AI is also reshaping MTG’s workflow.
InnoGames, for instance, has been using AI‑generated content for its mobile title Sunrise Village for some time and is exploring broader AI‑driven content creation. Redin observes that AI is being woven into many aspects of production—A/B testing, graphics generation, quality assurance, and more. Successful AI tools from individual studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium‑derived tech stack, allowing rapid diffusion of best practices across the group. When asked whether AI could eventually replace human creators, Redin is cautious.
She believes that while AI can accelerate processes and fill capacity gaps, the core creativity and vision of developers remain irreplaceable. Embracing AI, she argues, is necessary to stay competitive, but it must complement—not supplant—the human talent that drives game design.
Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income now stems from the Playamp division, with the casual side contributing roughly 20 %. Redin is eager to broaden both sides of the business. She mentions the recent acquisition of Snowprint and expresses interest in finding additional studios with similar capabilities. Although Playsimple is currently the sole casual‑district studio, she hints at the possibility of adding a third district in the future, likely built around core competencies such as marketing platforms or data analytics.
Despite the market’s maturity, Redin remains confident in its long‑term prospects. She points out that the top‑ten mobile games change very little year over year, reinforcing MTG’s strategy of investing in evergreen IPs like Raid: Shadow Legends while still nurturing a pipeline of new titles. Plarium, for example, is preparing to soft‑launch a fresh game early next year.
The broader industry context is sobering: Western mobile developers have struggled to launch billion‑dollar hits recently, and even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have faced setbacks. Redin acknowledges the difficulty of creating and scaling new games, but insists that a steady flow of fresh titles is essential to preserve the creative DNA of each studio and sustain growth. In summary, MTG is pursuing a multi‑pronged growth plan: double its size through a mix of organic expansion and targeted acquisitions, unify its technology under shared platforms, harness AI to boost productivity, and balance investment between proven evergreen franchises and a steady stream of new games. Redin’s vision of a cohesive "gaming village" is designed to retain talent, streamline operations, and keep the company agile in a market that, while no longer exploding, still offers ample opportunity for well‑executed, data‑driven, creatively rich mobile experiences.