It’s Kim Kardashian’s world; We’re all just living—and spending gaudy amounts of money—in it.The Daily Dot reports that Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, her surprisingly addictive mobile game/dissertation on the existential emptiness of postmodern celebrity, raked in $43 million during the third quarter of this year. The game itself is free, but players spent big on in-app purchases of things like clothing and “charm” for your character.
The $43 million figure is, weirdly, a little bit of a disappointment. Early on, game-maker Glu Mobile said that the app was on track make $200 million by the end of 2014, but it’s fallen behind that pace. On the other hand, the game is clearly a hit. It has been installed more than 22.8 million times. Players have spent more than 95 million hours standing around in it.
Are there lessons to gleaned here, other than the fact that Ms. Kardashian still has a Janet Yellen–esque license to print money? I’d argue that it’s another reminder that, despite the entertainment industry’s traditionally monomaniacal focus on young men, there’s plenty of money to be made catering to other half of the population. On the other hand, plenty of men seem to have been playing Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, too. As Time put it, “Everyone wants to be Kim K.”
