Xadira to launch Facebook social game ''Dragon Master'' by March

Kuala Lumpur: Kuala Lumpur based Xadira, a recently established start up is all set to release its first single player flash based game ''Dragon Master'' on Facebook by the end of March '10. The game play has a combination between Pokemon, Digimon and some of the electronic pet games on the market where the player needs to be really concerned about their dragon on their way to be a 'Dragon Master'. On their journey to be a 'Dragon Master', they will have to collect all 5 dragons (fire, water, earth, metal & wood) in order to unlock the biggest hidden special power. Having that in hand will make one a 'Dragon Master' and will receive a special ability that can be used in the war. This is where all the pride comes for a 'Dragon Master'. But to be at that stage will definitely not be easy, there will be a lot of obstacles and challenges along the way.

Talking to Animation Xpress Asia Pacific about the reason of launching the game on facebook, Nasrul Amri Samsudin, Xadira shared, "Firstly in Malaysia most people know me as an Author of Facebook book called "Rahsia Pemasaran Facebook" which means "The Secret of Facebook Marketing". I'm also a Facebook Developer Garage Cyberjaya Ambassador who runs local chapter of Facebook Developer Garage. On top of that, my partner; Muhammad Fazli and me were also the trainer for Facebook Application Development Training under Multimedia Development Corporation Sdn Bhd (MDeC) program called ICONapps; which encourage local developer to develop game / applet online by focusing on Facebook Platform."

"So I say to the team, why not we walk the talk. On the other hand, by developing game on Facebook Platform we already have a target market more than 350 millions people, which is connected in the platform. The unique and beauty of game on Facebook Platform is the viral capability which can make the game become popular and have a lots of user in short time with a low cost of marketing. We can see that lots of companies who develop games on Facebook are making huge revenue up to Millions per single game. Even an individual Facebook developer in Malaysia, who just developed an application like Facebook quiz, can earn up to five and six figure ringgit per month. So Facebook really has huge potential of revenue making if we know how to do it with right way."

Initially, Xadira started with three people; Nasrul Amri Samsudin, Muhammad Fazli, the Technical Director, who does Flash and Facebook coding for the game, Abdul Khafie; the Creative Director, who does the graphic design up to animation. Now the studio has a total of 15 people all together in development team. Talking about launching the game on other platforms he shared, "'Dragon Master' is not only targeting at Facebook, we already have the plan to venture into mobile platform such as iPhone & Android and also into console platform later. But as a start up company, we need to prove our capability of what we can do in this gaming industry, so that's why we need to choose one platform first. We then foresee Facebook as a great platform for us to kick-start our project."

"Marketing and promoting 'Dragon Master' are the best and challenging part, but we love it. Even now, we already started our marketing by creating a Facebook Public Profile for Xadira and get Facebook users to become our Fans. The URL is www.facebook.com/xadira. We always update them with the latest information and news, videos and pictures. Xadira also spent a little bit on Facebook Ads for advertisement to get targeted audience for the game. But we love to do our marketing in lowest or zero investment since Facebook is really good at viral marketing. We are happy seeing our Public Profile growing and Facebook users are being aware of our 'Dragon Master'."

So how would 'Dragon Master' break in to the clutter of social games which are already available on Facebook. Nasrul added, "Some of the reason why people get addicted on playing Facebook games are because of they can show off to their friends. This kind of environment will create competition for others to join in and try to be on top of their friends. We called it 'ego'. As long as the Facebook users have ego, they will always find ways to beat their friends on any game. Whether on the scores, or levels on game, decorations in game, and any other things that are competitive, these people will compete with each other. So our game will not look like Pet Society or Mafia Wars but we combine the uniqueness of games in Facebook into 'Dragon Master'. We believe in Social Games on Facebook and we know there are a lot of social games and a few companies so called "KING" in this platform who really have millions of users playing their application. Yet there still huge opportunity and space for us to tap in. Even if Facebook has more than 350 millions active users, if we can tap into 1% of total active users to become 'Dragon Master' users, it really makes a big difference and we will consider it a success."