In February of last year, the Swedish 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 playbook, according to MTG’s president and chief executive officer, Maria Redin. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company’s ambition, set after the Plarium acquisition, 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 continue to push organic growth, but to achieve that we’ll need to pursue further acquisitions." The timeline is aggressive: Redin aims to hit the doubling target within three to five years.
She noted that MTG has already demonstrated the ability to scale quickly, recalling that the firm set a similar growth goal in 2021 and ended up tripling its size. The mobile gaming market, once characterized by double‑digit expansion, has now settled into single‑digit growth as the sector matures. What was once a blue ocean of untapped users has become a crowded, highly competitive arena where gaining market share often means either taking customers from rivals or absorbing those rivals outright. Acquiring studios is the easier half of the equation; integrating them successfully is where many companies stumble.
The industry is littered with cautionary tales of poorly executed integrations that resulted in studio closures. MTG, however, believes it has a clear roadmap. Before buying Plarium, MTG already owned a suite of mobile developers, including InnoGames (known for Forge of Empires), Snowprint (Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus), Hutch (F1 Clash), Ninja Kiwi (Bloons TD 6), and Futureplay (Merge Gardens).
These studios were organized into two “districts”: a Casual District and a Midcore District—the latter covering games that sit between purely casual and hardcore experiences. Following the Plarium deal, the districts were rebranded as 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 generate revenue primarily through in‑app purchases, which now represent the bulk of MTG’s earnings. Redin says the rebranding is more than a cosmetic change; it reflects a vision to create "one of the leading gaming villages." The phrasing is intentional, meant to foster a sense of community that encourages talent to stay and thrive.
"People are our biggest asset," she said, "but we also need to build an environment where they can flourish. When we acquire a studio, we want the founders and their teams to remain after the deal, because that’s when the real story begins and the business can scale further. The only way to make that happen is to create a workplace they enjoy." A parallel effort underway since Redin took the helm in 2020 is the standardisation of technology and tools across the MTG ecosystem. The Plarium acquisition gave the group enough scale to roll out this vision fully.
Redin stressed that not every tool needs to be bespoke for each studio; instead, a shared tech stack can accelerate development while preserving the unique creative DNA of each team. She acknowledged the pitfalls of forced standardisation, citing Electronic Arts’ contentious push to adopt the Frostbite engine across its studios, which caused significant friction on projects like Mass Effect. To avoid similar missteps, MTG treats the needs of Playsimple and Playamp separately. "Playsimple’s tech foundation will serve future casual‑district acquisitions, while for Midcore we’ve selected parts of Plarium’s suite to deploy group‑wide, but in a very selective manner," Redin explained.
"We performed a thorough internal assessment to decide where collaboration makes sense and where it does not." Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system have already been rolled out across the group, with MTG adding new features and functionality to enhance them. The goal is to maximise impact: "We want to invest where we get the biggest bang for our buck," Redin said.
"We have fantastic game makers across the group, and with Playamp we aim to super‑charge them with a tech suite that elevates everything they already do." Generative AI is another major focus. InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated content for its mobile title Sunrise Village for some time and is looking to expand AI‑driven creation across its portfolio. Redin noted that AI is being woven into many production pipelines, from A/B testing and graphics generation to quality assurance. "AI is significantly more powerful than any tool we’ve had before," she said, adding that the industry is collectively grappling with how to balance AI integration with existing workflows.
The company’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 dissemination of best practices.
"We let studios experiment within our AI framework, share learnings, and then roll out the most effective solutions across the group," Redin explained. When asked whether AI has become a prerequisite for competing in the fast‑moving mobile market, Redin was cautious. "I often get asked if gaming AI will eventually do everything a human can," she said. "I don’t think so.
Creativity and imagination are still uniquely human. But if we ignore AI, we’ll fall behind competitors who are leveraging it to speed up development and improve quality." She highlighted that AI can help address capacity shortfalls, offering assistance in coding, art production, and complex logic. "AI supercharges our work, but we still rely on the talent, innovation, and vision of our teams," Redin emphasized. Revenue-wise, about 80 % of MTG’s income now comes from the Playamp division, with the casual side (Playsimple) contributing roughly 20 %.
Redin expressed a desire to broaden the studio roster further. "We acquired Snowprint a few years ago; finding five more studios like Snowprint worldwide would be fantastic. On the casual side we’d like to add more scale," she said.
Currently, Playsimple consists of a single studio, yet it already accounts for a fifth of the company’s revenue. Looking ahead, Redin hinted at the possibility of adding a third district to the gaming village, though the exact focus is still under discussion. "It would build on our core capabilities—either leveraging our marketing platforms or our data assets," she said. Despite the market’s maturity, the top‑ten mobile games list remains relatively static, reinforcing MTG’s long‑standing belief in evergreen intellectual property.
"Our thesis from day one has been to back evergreen IPs," Redin noted. While Raid: Shadow Legends still has many years of life ahead, the company also recognises the need for a fresh pipeline. "We must keep creating new games to sustain a healthy pipeline," she said, acknowledging the difficulty of launching successful new titles. Industry peers such as Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen have warned that the western mobile sector is "coasting," with only two of the 22 mobile games that have surpassed $1 billion in revenue since 2020 originating from the West.
Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have faced setbacks, exemplified by the recent shutdown of Squad Busters. Redin agrees that building and scaling a hit game is challenging, but she believes that new titles are essential to preserve the creative DNA of each studio. "If we stopped investing in new games, we’d lose the passion and drive that fuels innovation," she said. On the macro level, Redin sees a large, still‑growing market despite slower growth rates.
"We have three billion gamers worldwide, so the market is compelling," she affirmed. While hyper‑growth may be a thing of the past, MTG aims for low‑ to mid‑single‑digit expansion by continuing to nurture evergreen IPs and by bringing fresh experiences to market. In summary, MTG’s strategy under Maria Redin combines aggressive acquisition, thoughtful integration, technology standardisation, AI augmentation, and a balanced portfolio of proven evergreen titles and new game development.
The company’s ambition to double in size within the next three to five years hinges on executing this multi‑pronged plan while maintaining a culture that keeps talent engaged and creative.