Freesia City’s Co-founder on Social Gaming and 1 Million Users in Asia

Social gaming is one of the next big things. According to eMarketer, the industry is poised to be a $2 billion industry in the U.S by 2012.

We are witnessing the same trend in Asia as more social gaming companies mushroomed in recent years.

Dhub Digital, a Singapore and Indonesia-based social gaming start-up, is one of the more promising social gaming companies to watch.

It launched Freesia City, a Facebook social game on 20 December 2010, and currently has over 115,000 active monthly gamers. Its Freesia City Facebook fan page is also growing at breakneck speed with more than 110,000 likes at the point of writing. So, with a robust growth in an attractive industry, how does Freesia City plan to conquer the market?

We managed to get hold of Deasy Leann (picture above), co-founder of Dhub Digital to pick her thoughts about the social gaming industry and Freesia City’s direction.

1) Hi Deasy, thanks for joining us. Let’s start with something general. Who’re in your team and how was Dhub Digital founded?

We have a 14-member team made up of a game producer, a content writer, several flash developers, animators and artists. We founded Dhub Digital because we believe social games can bond people together. We also love the arts and entertainment industry and social games. So, why not create a company that has the best of both worlds? That’s how Dhub Digital was founded!

2) Sweet, best of both worlds. Now moving on to the topic. What do you think about social gaming in Asia?

In my opinion, China, Japan and South Korea are more advanced in online social gaming than the US. However for the South East Asia region, social gaming is relatively new. Farmville has motivated many users in South East Asia to sign up for Facebook accounts. We will expect, at least in Indonesia, that social gaming will grow as Internet connections get cheaper and faster.

3) How is Dhub Digital playing a role in this social gaming trend in Asia?

My team and I set up this company to ride on the social gaming trend. We started back in December 2009, and was probably the first social gaming company which builds games on the Facebook platform in Indonesia . It is a new concept to many Indonesians and we are localizing our Facenook fan page communications in Bahasa Indonesia to reach out to more Indonesians. There are more than 34 million Facebook users in Indonesia and we hope to spread fun to all users through our social games.

4) What made Freesia City successful?

I wouldn’t say that we are successful, yet. Making social games is like making a television series, we keep building as we go along and try our best to build the best social gaming experience. As of now, we have many ardent fans on our fanpage. Based on feedback, our gamers love the cute avatars and gorgeously designed virtual goods. They are also enjoying the game by decorating their rooms and challenging people in the mini games. These are factors which have helped us grow quickly in the past 2 months.

5) Can you reveal any big plans for Freesia City?