Kim Kardashian Fans Face The End of a Fabulous Lifestyle
Millions became jet-setting moguls in game led by reality star. Now, it’s vanishing.
BY JOSEPH PISANI AND SARAH E. NEEDLEMAN
Alexis Costello has spent years building a dream life, acquiring a jet, closets full of designer fashions, and homes in New Orleans, Tokyo and San Francisco. Soon it will all be taken away. It isn’t real life, it’s “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,” a decade-old mobile game from the reality TV star. In the game, downloaded by millions, players start as new arrivals looking to make it in Hollywood—and a cartoon version of Kardashian, down to her real voice, is there to help. “Hey bestie!” she greets players.
The game announced it will shut down for good in April, erasing the app and the fabulous virtual lives players have created. Fans have started petitions and flooded social media to beg Kardashian to reconsider. Others are preparing for the end, blowing their hard-earned digital savings like drunken sailors and even cheating on their virtual spouses. “I’m crushed,” says Costello, 28, a student in St. Louis. Erin Gannon, a 25-year-old pediatric nurse, is dressing her avatar Aryn in all black until April. Even Aryn’s blond hair has been dyed. “I’m in mourning,” Gannon says. She is taking screenshots of Aryn, for when she misses her. “It feels sad to think of a future without this little girl on my phone.”
It isn’t for everyone, but adopting virtual identities in videogames is wildly popular entertainment. Part of the appeal, as one study noted, is that players have novel experiences and “try on” aspects of themselves “that might not find expression in everyday life.”
“Kim Kardashian: Holly-wood” players could, in a pretend world, climb the ladder in highflying careers, and dabble in fashion, real estate and businesses.
Peppur Triplett, a 35-year-old campaign manager in Houston, has played at least twice a day for a decade. She steered her avatar Maybelline into being a successful entrepreneur: from clothing-store cashier to clothing-store mogul, owning shops around the world, including in Beverly Hills, Paris and New Delhi. Maybelline visits the stores by jumping in her private jet. Triplett has abandoned plans to buy a helicopter to go with Maybelline’s jet, saying she won’t save enough virtual cash by the time the game ends. “That dream is over,” she says. It isn’t just material things she’ll miss. “I am worried about Jake,” Triplett says about the digital goldfish that resides in Maybelline’s Los Angeles home. “Who’s going to feed him? What’s going to happen with him?…I know it seems funny, but it’s really heartbreaking.”
“Kim Kardashian: Holly-wood” was among Kardashian’s early business successes, years before she turned her Skims shapewear brand into a $4 billion enterprise. Kardashian said in a statement that she wanted to focus on other passions. She also has a skin care brand and is studying to be a lawyer.
Videogame maker Glu Mobile launched the game in 2014. Its former chief executive Niccolo De Masi, who left in 2016, says he worked closely with Kardashian to make the game and was disap-pointed to learn of its pending demise. “If it was up to me, we’d still be going.”
The game mirrored Kardashian’s real life: If she took a ski trip, so did her character. It so intertwined with her daily activities that De Masi ended up in three episodes of her family’s reality show, “Keeping Up With the Kardashians.” “I can remember fans even chasing me down at Cannes because they were such fans of the game and her,” he says, referencing the ad festival in the South of France.
Kardashian’s family, including her mom, Kris Jenner, were added to the game. Her sister Kourtney Kardashian Barker initially refused, causing enough drama to fill an episode of the TV show. Kourtney eventually had a change of heart. The game is free to play, but players can spend real money on virtual currency for clothing and more for their avatars. In its first six months, the game brought in $74.3 million in revenue, Glu Mobile told investors. Time magazine named Kardashian’s digital doppelgänger the second most influential fictional character of 2014, behind Elsa, from Disney’s “Frozen.” To date, the game has amassed 59 million downloads, according to market- intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
Glu Mobile tried versions with other stars, including Britney Spears, Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift and Kardashian’s youngest sisters, Kylie and Kendall Jenner. They have all closed, and none came close to lasting as long as “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.”
The game notified players in January it would end, without saying why. A spokeswoman for Electronic Arts, which bought Glu Mobile in 2021 for $2.4 billion, declined to comment.
Gia Barker, 22 , has played since junior high and thought she was among the few still at it. Then she stumbled on a Reddit group where 12,000 members discuss the game. “I never thought so many other grown women played,” says Barker, a stay-at-home mom in Portland, Ore. She created a Change.org petition to save it—6,000-plus people have signed it. Many are pleading on social media.
My pal Kim
‘Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,’ a decade-old mobile game, is shutting down in April and fans aren’t happy. ANDREW HARRER/ BLOOMBERG NEWS
Longtime player Elise Kartal, a 22-year-old student in Salt Lake City, plans to spend the final days of “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood” getting reckless. She may have her avatar cheat on her longtime virtual husband, something she hadn’t contemplated before.
“I was weirdly emotionally invested in it,” she says of the fake marriage, which produced two virtual children. “Maybe I’ll just screw it all up and see what happens.”
Kartal has also been hitting the game’s casino and spending her avatar’s virtual dollars at roulette. “I’ve just been so careful with my money in the game because I always thought about, ‘Well what outfits might I want to buy in the future?,’ ” she says. “But now, there’s no future.”
Navigating your satchel, horse cargo, and so on, needs you to hold down Tab and use E and R to navigate tabs, while also using the mouse to select the actual item.
