Kim Kardashian West has landed herself another magazine cover – this time on Forbes, thanks to the ridiculous success of her mobile app, Kim Kardashian Hollywood.
The game allows you to create an avatar and navigate the bizarre climb to fame in tinsel town, befriending Kim (the numero uno A-lister, naturellement) and werkin’ for the funds to buy new shit. (Or, if you want the special stuff, you can purchase them for a teeny tiny amount of IRL money.)
Since its June 2014 launch, it’s clocked in $US160 million ($212 million) in revenue. Believe us when we say WE KNOW a decent portion of the world doesn’t like Kim because she represents “everything that’s wrong with the world” and had the gall to release a sex tape over a decade ago), but that is not a number to scoff at.
And Kim’s got a sense of humour about it.
#NotBadForAGirlWithNoTalent ????
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) July 11, 2016
“I became really intrigued with the tech world,” she said. “I started spending a lot of time in San Francisco. I realised this is really going to be the next cycle of my career and this is what I want to focus on.”
Forbes used Kim as a launch pad to talk about all the other celebrities out there capitalising on fame and following through mobile apps: Ellen DeGeneres with her ‘Heads Up!‘ trivia app, Tom Hanks with his typewriter-simulator app, Katy Perry‘s Pop app which appears to be literally the same as Kim’s, but with pop stardom instead of socialite fame.
Because that’s the real story here: the booming, fuck-off huge business of celebrity-backed mobile games. According to the developer behind Kim’s and Katy’s apps, Glu Mobile, it made 30% of its $US249.9 million revenue in 2015 from apps with celebrity names in the title.
Honestly, it’s only a matter of time before every business-savvy person with an eye for cash and a mass following has one. And more power to them.
Source: Forbes.
Photo: Forbes.
