Merscom and Alawar Entertainment, a leading publisher and distributor of casual games in Eastern Europe, announced today that Alawar will publish a Russian version of Merscom’s top casual game, National Geographic Games Herod’s Lost Tomb. The agreement marks the first time a Russian version of Merscom’s casual games will be available for download sales.

National Geographic Games’ Herod’s Lost Tomb has been a great success in North America, reaching the top-5 on Big Fish Games, Real Arcade, iWin, Reflexive Arcade, Shockwave, Spintop and Yahoo Games.

National Geographic Games’ Herod’s Lost Tomb is an exciting hidden-object game that takes the player on an archaeological journey of Kind Herod the Great. It gives players an opportunity to experience an exciting, real-life archaeological adventure! Herod’s Lost Tomb features stunning, world-famous photography from National Geographic combined with an engaging story where the player follows the life and death of one of the most famous rulers of the ancient Middle East, King Herod of Judea! The game’s authentic content is vetted by NatGeo researchers and historians and consists of 16 environments and 5 mini-games.

’For the first time, Russian casual gamers can download and buy a game based on the awe-inspiring National Geographic content,’ said Lloyd Melnick, Chief Customer Officer of Merscom. ’They are no longer limited to playing the English version of our games. This is a huge step in making our games available to consumer worldwide where, when and how they want to consume them.’

’We are really excited about partnering with Alawar to bring Herod to Russia,’ said Dimitri Kirin, Producer at Merscom. ’They understand the Russian market better than any other company and will help get our game into the hands of the most consumers.’

"The Russian casual games market is still young. If we want to broaden our horizons and appeal to audiences that normally don’t play games, we need to make use of popular brands," says Roman Polyak, business development director of Alawar Entertainment. "The outstanding content of the National Geographic Channel will be of great interest to Internet users in Russia and beyond."