German publisher Fishlabs is expanding eastwards with the launch of its Russian website, which went live today.

The company has big plans for the territory, citing its 165 million mobile users, of which a decent share are capable of running rich 3D Java mobile games.

Fishlabs also says that data connectivity is cheap in Russia, while mobile content usage is high. The publisher's games are already popular among Russian gamers apparently.

The problem with Russia is that there's a lot of mobile game piracy there. However, Fishlabs is working with local firm Iricom to use SMS billing within its games.

"Russia is an unbelievably attractive market for us – along with the large number of game-capable mobile phones and the favourable connection costs over the mobile network, the Russians' technical affinity is legendary." says Fishlabs boss Michael Schade.

"It is no wonder that by far the largest share of "virally acquired" mobile gamers come from Russia. Combined with an in-game online connection, we can now generate significant revenues even from pirated copies via the PSMS connection through Iricom."