Today Plarium, one of the world’s fastest growing developers of social games, announced the launch of its latest game to hit Facebook, Stormfall: Age of War.

Stormfall focuses on the popular medieval fantasy genre by allowing players to follow an immersive storyline to build their castle and form strategic alliances with other players to defend the throne of a fallen empire. Gamers descend into a dark world of ancient magic, dragons, destiny, and heroes with the mission of restoring Stormfall to its former glory. Stormfall is currently available to the global Facebook audience and is free to play.

“Following the success of our popular Facebook games Total Domination and Pirates: Tides of Fortune, Plarium is focused on delivering the next explosive title with the launch of Stormfall: Age of War,” said Avi Shalel, Plarium’s Chief Executive Officer. “The story of Stormfall is one that will appeal to hardcore gamers. We’re eager to introduce our fans to the world of kingdoms, magic, and more with this exciting title.”

Stormfall provides users with real-time strategic gameplay, allowing them to acquire resources through battling competing castles, raids and trades, forming alliances with fellow lords, and finding the cunning to survive in an age of war.

Now you can play your favorite Poker Shark from all over the world via your iPhone or iPad.

Get your favorite game Poker Shark from Plarium.
From the beginning only the users from Ukraine & Israel will be able to download the game.
The rest of the world will be added very soon.

(Reuters) - Israel-based online games developer Plarium, whose multi-player game Total Domination has attracted 20 million users in just a year, expects revenue to double annually in coming years as it launches new games and enters new markets such as the United States.

By Tova Cohen
HERZLIYA, Israel | Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:47am EDT

"We are growing very fast," Plarium CEO Avi Shalel told Reuters. "Since the beginning we have doubled revenue every year and we expect this pace to continue."

The private company, which has so far focused largely on Russia and eastern Europe, does not disclose financial data but Shalel said revenue had reached tens of millions of dollars a year and the company is profitable.

Plarium has six new games in the pipeline, including two that will be launched in coming weeks, and is entering new platforms such as Facebook (FB.O) and mobile devices, as well as starting its own standalone website.

Plarium, which was founded three years ago and employs 250 staff, has over 70 million users, mostly in Russia and eastern Europe, including 3 million active daily users.

It started out by developing applications such as a social poker platform for Russia and eastern Europe, initially focusing on the social network VKontakte and then expanding to other sites such as Mail.Ru (MAILRq.L).

"There was no Farmville, no poker, there was a tremendous need for it but no one was developing it," Shalel said.

Plarium has become the leading developer of online games in Russia and eastern Europe in terms of revenue, though Social Quantum, which focuses on casual games, or non-hardcore games played once in a while, has more users.

GOING GLOBAL

"We realized that if we want to go global we must be able to develop original content. We decided to start developing for the hardcore and midcore game audiences with the aim of going international," the 26-year-old CEO said.

Plarium's first original online game Total Domination was launched a year ago and has 20 million users, while its second, Pirates, is approaching 10 million after six months. They are known as "massively multiplayer online" (MMO) games, capable of supporting thousands of players simultaneously.

Plarium has five animation studios - one in Israel, one in Russia and three in Ukraine - and is seeking to open one in the United States.

While users can play the games for free, they must pay for special content and benefits. Plarium is also experimenting with carrying advertising in eastern Europe.

"We don't see it being a main business model in the near future. We want to make sure we don't spoil the user experience with advertisements," Shalel said.

Plarium has two main competitors, Kixeye and Kabam, in the hardcore gaming market. Shalel believes Zynga (ZNGA.O), the world's largest social game publisher whose games include Farmville, will eventually enter the hardcore market.

"They will need ... to enter new genres and hardcore games will be on their radar. By that time we hope to establish ourselves as the dominant player," he said.

Born in Georgia, then part of the Soviet Union, Shalel is a native Russian speaker who moved to Israel as a teenager. After attending university in the United States he founded Plarium with six partners, who used their own money to start the company and did not have to seek out venture capital.

"We are building the company to go public," Shalel said. "We are not looking for an early exit or to sell the company."

The First Tour of all-Ukrainian Collegiate Programming Contest took place on April 21, 2012. The contest is an annual multi-tiered competitive programming competition of an enormous significance in IT-development.

The Contest is held annually by Ejidge and attracts talented programmers from all over the World. The contest is sponsored by IBM in the USA, and by Plarium Ukraine in Kharkiv. Among the autonomous regions taking part in the Contest, Kharkiv established itself as a leader, to prove once again an excellent background of Kharkiv students.

Plarium Team is proud to support the university community by establishing the International Programming Contest. After registering, all the participants received some gifts from Plarium. The contestants were full of energy and engaged full throttle into the competition. The lecture halls were decorated by posters with the images from the games developed by Plarium to inspire the students and show them the perspectives of working for Plarium. 47 teams, three students each, fought to win the competition. The contest was held on the turf of two large universities - National Aerospace University – Kharkiv Aviation Institute (KhAI) and National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute" (NTU "KhPI").

In KhPI the Programming Contest the results are the following: the winners are students of “KNURE_Team” from Kharkiv National University of Radio-Electronics (they also placed second in the Eastern Region); the second prize went to “SobolevTeam” from Kharkiv National University named after Karazin, and breathing down their necks were the “iddqd” Team from Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute who placed third.

The Programming Contest results in KhNAU: winners - “Desperados” Team, second prize - “Edit”, third prize - “Problem?". All the teams were formed up of students of Kharkiv National Aerospace University.

Plarium rewarded all the winners with valuable gifts: iPods for 1st place winners, second and third prizes received last generation USB thumb drives. Plarium cordially congratulated the aspiring programmers with their outstanding results and reminded about the opportunities that await the talented IT specialists in the company. Onward and upward!

“Total Domination: Nuclear Strategy” is opening up a new battlefront on a brand new Wasteland. Check your gear and mount up - we’re launching operations on our first independent Web Portal!

Whether you’re a seasoned veteran looking for a fresh start, or a new Commander straight out of the Academy - Strategic Command needs YOU!

Your armies await your orders. To enlist for duty, visit our Portal here at http://pv.plarium.com.

Turbo Poker – it’s your ability to play your favorite poker with instant option to go for any game table in the shortest time. The concept of the game is that the player can press the “Switch Table” button and move to another game table.

Switch Table ("Change Table") button instantly moves you to the next table, even if the move did not reach to you.

You use the button “Switch Table” at any time draw.

Pressing the Switch Table, you cannot undo this action.

In the Turbo Poker you can play only one table.

Button Refill ("Deposit") allows you to fill up your chips bank during the game, to its original condition. Addition happens with the next hand of cards!

Enjoy the game.

Ahoy, me hearties! "Tis the finest o'the days when "Pirates: Tides of Fortune" claimed 3,000,000 of bold and fearless Captains that lead their Crew and battle their ways through the Seven Seas of Odnoklassniki! We thank yer, good gentlemen o'Fortune, for hoisting the Jolly Roger with us! Three sheets to th' wind!

Due to rebranding of Google’s AndroidMarket online app store, its name has changed to Google Play.

Google Play is now going to contain three virtual stores (Android Market, eBookstore and Music) and their cloud services.

According to Android Advices’ users, to get an update you need to download *.apk file to your computer, connect your device to your PC, copy the file into smartphone’s memory and then install it. Make sure to turn on app installation option from unknown devices.

There’s also an additional way to get an update available to the US users and the ones who have access to music through Play Google. Open Android Market and update Google Music app, removing your data from settings.

However, music, book and video services for Russian users still remain unavailable.
Hopefully, not for too long.

ARRR! Grab your cutlass and prepare to raise anchor - Pirates: Tides of Fortune has boarded Facebook! Come join in the adventure as you battle to wealth and infamy on the high seas! Be sure to check in here for new updates – we’ve got some awesome new surprises and features locked down in the hold, and we’ll be announcing them here first!