Modern Times Group Targets Scale and AI Integration in Ambitious Bid to Double in Size

Swedish digital entertainment and gaming powerhouse Modern Times Group (MTG) has set its sights on massive expansion, outlining an aggressive strategy to double its overall size over the next three to five years. This ambitious growth blueprint relies on a balanced combination of selective mergers and acquisitions, organic portfolio development, and the large-scale integration of artificial intelligence tooling across its vast network of development studios.

Over the past several years, MTG has systematically built up its games business through a series of high-profile acquisitions and strategic investments. Today, the company’s robust portfolio features a diverse lineup of established studios and internationally recognized properties, including InnoGames, Snowprint Studios, Hutch, Ninja Kiwi, Futureplay, PlaySimple, and Plarium.

The acquisition of Plarium, the renowned developer behind the blockbuster hit Raid: Shadow Legends, represents MTG’s most recent major corporate maneuver. MTG acquired the studio in a massive $620 million deal from Aristocrat Leisure, which opted to exit the gaming space to concentrate fully on its core casino business. Meanwhile, another key pillar of the company’s portfolio, PlaySimple, has previously filed for a $350 million initial public offering in Mumbai, highlighting the global financial weight and momentum of MTG’s subsidiary businesses.

Despite these major milestones and a robust existing catalog, leadership at the Swedish firm believes the company is still only scratching the surface of its long-term potential.

Speaking on the company’s strategic vision, MTG President and CEO Maria Redin explained that scale remains a fundamental driver for success in the intensely competitive modern entertainment landscape, where game developers must contend not only with rival studios but also with dominant social media networks and streaming platforms.

According to Redin, achieving scale is not about growing simply for the sake of corporate bigness, but rather about maintaining market relevance by delivering exceptional games that resonate deeply with players. While she acknowledges that doubling the company’s size entirely through organic growth would be an extraordinarily difficult feat, MTG plans to bridge the gap by maintaining a targeted and selective mergers and acquisitions agenda. This approach involves thoughtfully diversifying the corporate portfolio with evergreen intellectual properties and casual gaming franchises, which are then accelerated through strong organic momentum.

Reflecting on her tenure as chief executive, during which she notes the company has already more than tripled in size, Redin emphasizes that setting exceptionally high ambitions is a necessary catalyst for pushing the organization further forward.

Central to MTG’s operational strategy is what leadership describes as a "village philosophy." Under this framework, individual studios are expected to stand firmly on their own merits, maintaining a solid financial outlook and taking full creative accountability for their projects. Once a studio demonstrates financial and creative viability, MTG steps in to turbocharge its growth, creating an environment where the collective group becomes significantly better than the sum of its parts.

This philosophy is heavily rooted in the cross-pollination of technology, data, and operational learnings across the entire corporate ecosystem. When a single studio discovers an effective strategy or develops a powerful internal tool, that knowledge is shared broadly throughout the group rather than forcing separate teams to reinvent the wheel. For instance, centralized marketing platforms and specialized data systems developed by individual teams can be leveraged across the entire corporate group, maximizing efficiency and competitive strength.

When evaluating potential merger and acquisition opportunities, particularly in emerging and vibrant development hubs across regions such as Türkiye, China, and Vietnam, MTG maintains a disciplined approach. Redin notes that the primary consideration during any evaluation is genre diversification, ensuring that new additions align well with the company’s strategic goals. While MTG has traditionally remained heavily Western-focused regarding its studio locations and game styles, the company is dedicating increasing amounts of time and research to exploring international markets to identify prospective studios that would fit seamlessly into its gaming village.

Once a studio is integrated into the MTG network, leadership strives to balance empowerment with clear corporate governance. Redin firmly believes that studio leadership teams must retain accountability for their own financial results, profit and loss statements, and creative direction. Without that level of direct ownership, she argues, it becomes exceedingly difficult for creative teams to successfully deliver on commitments they have not truly driven themselves.

This collaborative yet structured environment has also shaped recent corporate restructuring efforts. Last month, MTG officially rebranded its midcore in-app purchase-focused division—encompassing Plarium, InnoGames, Snowprint, Hutch, Ninja Kiwi, and Futureplay—under the unified brand name PlayAmp. Shared services housed within PlayAmp include Plarium’s advanced data platform, the GoGame marketing platform, a dedicated direct-to-consumer platform that accounted for 51% of the division’s total revenue as of the second quarter of 2026, and a centralized AI laboratory.

Redin explains that the rebrand was designed to foster a stronger shared identity across the midcore division, uniting disparate teams under a single banner and eliminating operational bottlenecks so the organization can operate with greater speed and cohesion.

When addressing the integration of artificial intelligence, Redin stresses that leadership cannot rely solely on top-down, centralized directives given the rapid pace of technological innovation in the video game industry. A rigid central approach risks missing critical grassroots innovations bubbling up from individual developers.

Instead, MTG has established a flexible overarching framework consisting of whitelisted tools and clear operational guidelines. Within these defined boundaries, individual studios are given the freedom to experiment rapidly with a wide array of emerging technologies. Once specific tools or workflows prove successful in practice, those insights are shared swiftly across studios and divisions. Simultaneously, a centralized AI laboratory operates a sandbox environment to conduct deeper iterations that complement the day-to-day work happening within the individual studios.

Redin is notably enthusiastic about the transformative potential of artificial intelligence across the entire development lifecycle. In the realm of new game development, she suggests that developers can now approach projects fundamentally differently than they did in the past. Where a traditional team might have spent a year or more bringing a single game to life, modern teams can leverage AI tools and adjusted project scaling to explore multiple concepts simultaneously. This expanded capacity provides developers with more shots on goal, allowing them to test numerous ideas, filter out unviable concepts more quickly, and ultimately accelerate the path to a global launch.

At the same time, existing production chains and established workflows are not being discarded from scratch. Instead, MTG is focused on adapting and tweaking every procedural step within its current operations to move faster, produce richer content, and conduct more rigorous testing.

Crucially, Redin emphasizes that MTG’s corporate philosophy regarding artificial intelligence is centered on empowering the existing workforce rather than pursuing workforce reductions. The primary objective is not simply finding cost efficiencies, but rather elevating overall product quality, expanding content output, and successfully bringing more games to market. By amplifying every single stage of production—from initial concept development and programming to marketing and user acquisition—artificial intelligence serves as a powerful complement to the talented teams that MTG has carefully assembled across its global network.