In February of last year, Sweden’s mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) completed a $620 million acquisition 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 group’s ambition, set shortly after the Plarium purchase, is to double its overall size once more. “We laid out the vision last year that, after bringing Plarium into the fold, we want to double again,” she explained.
“We’ll keep driving organic growth, but to hit that target we’ll need to pursue additional acquisitions.” The timeline she cited is aggressive: the company aims to achieve the doubling within roughly three to five years. Redin noted that MTG has already proven capable of rapid scaling, pointing to a 2021 goal that resulted in a tripling of the firm’s size. The mobile gaming market, once a blue‑ocean of double‑digit expansion, has now settled into single‑digit growth as the sector matures.
In this tighter environment, gaining market share increasingly means either taking pieces from competitors or absorbing them outright. Acquiring studios is the easier half of the equation; integrating them is where many firms stumble.
The industry is littered with cautionary tales of failed mergers that culminated in studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear integration roadmap.
Before the Plarium deal, 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—the latter covering games that sit between casual and hardcore experiences. The districts have recently been rebranded as Playsimple and Playamp, respectively. Playsimple, named after the India‑based WordTrip studio, aggregates free‑to‑play, ad‑supported titles, while Playamp houses the majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases (IAPs).
Redin says the rebranding is more than cosmetic; it reflects a vision of building “one of the leading gaming villages.” The term “village” is meant to evoke a sense of community that encourages talent to stay and thrive—a crucial factor when a company is rapidly adding new studios. “Gaming is the best marriage of creativity and data‑driven decision‑making,” she said. “People are our biggest asset, but we must create an environment where they can flourish.
When we acquire a studio, we want the founders and their teams to remain post‑deal, because that is when the real story begins and the business can be scaled.” A key pillar of the integration plan is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group. Redin noted that not every studio needs a bespoke tech stack; a shared foundation can accelerate development and reduce duplication. This standardisation effort began when she took the helm in 2020, but the scale afforded by the Plarium acquisition finally allowed MTG to roll it out fully. She cautioned that a one‑size‑fits‑all approach would be a mistake, referencing EA’s troubled push to force all studios onto the Frostbite engine.
Instead, MTG treats the two districts separately. Playsimple’s tech stack will become the baseline for future casual acquisitions, while the Midcore (Playamp) side will selectively adopt components of Plarium’s technology suite. “We performed a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it does not,” Redin explained. 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 will boost studio output and ensure the company’s investments yield the highest return. “We have amazing game makers across the group. With Playamp we want to super‑charge them with a tech suite that elevates everything they already do.” Artificial intelligence is another area where MTG is investing heavily.
InnoGames, for example, has been generating content for its mobile title Sunrise Village using AI for some time and plans to expand AI‑driven creation across its portfolio. Redin said AI is becoming embedded in many production pipelines, from A/B testing and graphics generation to quality assurance.
“Generative AI is significantly more powerful than any tool we’ve had before,” she noted, adding that the challenge is to strike the right balance between automation and human creativity. MTG’s approach is to layer AI on top of existing tools rather than replace them outright. Successful AI solutions from individual studios are being incorporated into the broader Plarium tech suite, allowing rapid diffusion of best practices.
“We let studios experiment within our AI framework, share learnings, and roll out breakthroughs across the company quickly,” Redin said. When asked whether AI is now a prerequisite for competing in the mobile market, Redin responded that it is not an absolute requirement, but falling behind on AI would put MTG at a disadvantage.
“Our talent’s creativity can’t be replicated by AI yet, but without AI we’d be slower than competitors. Embracing it lets us maintain pace and even accelerate it.” She highlighted AI’s role in addressing capacity shortfalls in coding, art, and complex logic, describing it as a supercharger for the development process. Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple. Redin expressed a desire to broaden the studio roster, noting that Snowprint was acquired a few years ago and that adding more studios of similar calibre would be “fantastic.” While Playsimple currently consists of a single studio, the company hopes to expand its casual footprint and is even contemplating a third “district” that would leverage core capabilities such as marketing platforms or data analytics.
Looking ahead, Redin believes the mobile top‑ten games list is unlikely to change dramatically; evergreen IPs continue to dominate. Nonetheless, she stresses the importance of a fresh pipeline.
“Raid has many years ahead of it, but we still need new games to keep the pipeline alive.” She acknowledged the difficulty of launching successful new titles, citing Supercell’s recent struggle with its Squad Busters incubator, but argued that without new projects the studios would lose part of their creative DNA. In the context of a maturing market, Redin remains optimistic about growth potential. With roughly three billion gamers worldwide, the sector is still compelling despite competition from streaming services and social media.
She expects growth to settle in the low‑ to mid‑single‑digit range, and she believes that sustaining and expanding evergreen IPs while introducing fresh games is the formula for continued success.