In February of the previous year, Swedish mobile powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) closed a $620 million deal to acquire Plarium, the studio behind the wildly popular hero‑collection title Raid: Shadow Legends. That transaction, while already sizable, appears to be only the opening move in a broader expansion playbook, according to MTG’s president and chief executive, Maria Redin. Redin told GamesIndustry.biz that the company set a clear vision after the Plarium deal: “We want to double our size again after the acquisition, and we intend to do that through a mix of organic growth and further purchases.” She added that the target timeframe for this doubling is roughly three to five years. The ambition is not new – MTG pursued a similar growth trajectory in 2021 and, as Redin recalled, the group actually tripled its scale during that period.
The mobile gaming landscape has changed dramatically since those high‑growth days. A few years ago, the sector was expanding at double‑digit rates, but today growth has slowed to single‑digit percentages, signalling a mature market that no longer offers a blue‑ocean of untapped users.
In such an environment, expanding market share often means either taking customers from competitors or absorbing those competitors outright. Acquiring studios is the easy part; the real challenge lies in integration. The industry is littered with cautionary tales of acquisitions that resulted in cultural clashes, duplicated technology stacks, and ultimately studio closures.
Redin insists that MTG has learned from those failures and built a systematic plan to avoid them. Before buying Plarium, MTG already owned a portfolio 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 originally grouped 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 acquisition, 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 majority of MTG’s portfolio, which relies on in‑app purchases (IAPs). Redin says the renaming is more than cosmetic; it reflects a deeper ambition to create “one of the leading gaming villages.” The term “village” is deliberately chosen to convey a sense of community and belonging, with the goal of retaining talent and fostering collaboration across the many newly‑added teams.
“People are our biggest asset,” she explained, “and we must build an environment where they can thrive. When we acquire a studio we want the founders and their teams to stay, because that’s when the real story begins – scaling the business together.” A key pillar of the integration strategy is the standardisation of technology and tools across the group. Redin notes that not every studio needs a bespoke tech stack; instead, MTG is rolling out shared platforms wherever it makes sense. The push for standardisation began when she became CEO in 2020, but the scale achieved after adding Plarium finally allowed the vision to be executed fully.
She acknowledges the pitfalls of forced uniformity, citing Electronic Arts’ problematic rollout of the Frostbite engine across disparate franchises as an example of how a one‑size‑fits‑all approach can backfire. To avoid similar issues, MTG treats the two districts separately. Playsimple’s tech suite will serve as the foundation for future casual acquisitions, while Playamp will adopt selected components of Plarium’s technology, deploying them selectively after a thorough internal assessment of where shared tools add value.
Plarium’s GoGame marketing platform and its product‑detail‑page (PDP) data system have already been adopted group‑wide, and MTG is actively extending their capabilities. Redin says the aim is to “put our efforts where we get the biggest bang for our buck,” leveraging the strong creative talent across the organisation while giving them a more powerful technical backbone. Generative AI is another area where MTG is investing heavily.
InnoGames, for example, has been using AI‑generated assets for its mobile title Sunrise Village for some time and plans to broaden AI‑driven content creation across its portfolio. Redin observes that AI is becoming embedded in production pipelines throughout the mobile sector.
She describes AI as “significantly more powerful than any tool we’ve had before,” and emphasises the need to find the right balance – using AI to augment workflows such as A/B testing, graphics creation, and quality assurance, while preserving the human creativity that remains irreplaceable. The company’s AI strategy is collaborative: successful AI solutions from one studio are packaged into the Plarium tech suite and rolled out to other studios, provided they fit within MTG’s overarching AI framework of dos and don’ts.
This approach enables rapid diffusion of best practices while still allowing individual teams the freedom to experiment. When asked whether AI will eventually replace human designers, Redin is cautious. She believes AI will not fully supplant creative talent, but she also warns that ignoring AI would leave MTG lagging behind competitors. “If we don’t embrace AI, we will be slower than the market,” she said, adding that AI can help alleviate capacity shortfalls in coding, art, and complex logic.
Financially, about 80 % of MTG’s revenue now comes from the Playamp division, with the remaining 20 % generated by Playsimple. Redin is eager to broaden both sides of the business. She cites the acquisition of Snowprint a few years ago and says that adding “five more Snowprints around the world would be fantastic.” On the casual side, she notes that Playsimple is currently a single studio but still contributes a meaningful share of earnings.
Looking ahead, she envisions a possible third district that would leverage the core capabilities of MTG – perhaps focusing on marketing platforms or data analytics – though the exact shape of that unit remains under discussion. Despite the market’s maturity, Redin believes the top‑ten mobile games remain remarkably stable year after year. “Our thesis from day one has been to back evergreen IPs,” she explains. Raid: Shadow Legends, for instance, still has many years of revenue potential.
At the same time, she stresses the importance of a healthy pipeline of new titles to keep the creative engine humming. Plarium, for example, is preparing to soft‑launch a new game early next year. The broader industry context is sobering.
Supercell’s Ilkka Paananen recently warned that the western mobile market is “coasting,” noting that only two of the 22 mobile games that have generated over $1 billion since 2020 originated in the West. Even Supercell’s own incubation efforts have struggled, with projects like Squad Busters being shut down after a brief run.
Redin acknowledges these challenges, saying that building and scaling a hit game is difficult for any company. Yet she argues that abandoning investment in new games would erode the creative DNA of MTG’s studios.
“New titles keep the passion and drive alive,” she says. In summary, Redin sees a future where MTG continues to grow by balancing the strength of its evergreen franchises with a disciplined push for fresh experiences. The market may no longer deliver hyper‑growth, but with a three‑billion‑player base and a competitive landscape that includes streaming services and social media, there remains ample room for incremental expansion. By standardising technology, embracing AI, and nurturing a collaborative “gaming village,” MTG aims to double its size within the next few years while maintaining the creative spirit that has defined its success.