HONG KONG: Paris Hilton continues to support a thriving industry built around licensing her name to everything from false eyelashes to a clothing line for chihuahuas.
Now ASX-listed Animoca Brands is banking on Paris’s appeal to launch one or more mobile gaming apps, reported Sydney Morning Herald.
Hong Kong-based Animoca has struck a deal to license her name, likeness and “global celebrity” for use on its mobile apps.
She will join a stable that includes Garfield, Astro Boy, Ben 10, Ultraman, the YouTube celebrity Tiffany Alvord and the Japanese manga character Doraemon.
The Paris Hilton move comes in the wake of the successful launch of the Kim Kardashian: Hollywood game app by the US-based Glu Mobile last year.
According to Adweek, the game has been downloaded over 28 million times and played for a total of 11 billion minutes, earning Glu Mobile more than $US74 million last year. That’s before Kim’s 45 per cent cut.
With one celebrity-themed hit under its belt, Glu Mobile announced last month that it had signed singer Katy Perry and secured the rights to feature her “voice, likeness, and personality” in mobile games based around music industry simulations.
And it doesn’t stop there. Kim’s hubby Kanye West mentioned during a radio interview last week that he is also working on a video game, the purpose of which is to help his late mother get to heaven.
“I’m working on a video game for [my song] Only One, and the idea is it’s my mother going through the gates of heaven,” he told a morning radio talk show . “And you gotta bring her to the highest gates of heaven by holding her to the light.”
Kanye’s mother Donda passed away in November, 2007 aged 58 due to cardiac complications arising during plastic surgery.
Both Glu and Animoca follow a similar fremium model strategy: free game downloads with in-app purchases and advertising.
Though with 13.2 million Twitter followers and 4.1 on Instagram, Paris is a minnow in the social celebrity stakes when pitted again Kim’s 29.5 Twitter followers and 27.2 million Instagram fans.
Animoca, which raised $2.4 million on the ASX when it completed a backdoor listing in January, says its apps have been downloaded over 116 million times.
But the big question remains: who is going to be first to market with a Miley Cyrus-themed gaming app?
