Mobile games firm Glu Mobile has made more than $100m from its Kim Kardashian: Hollywood mobile game, with a decent chunk of those revenues going to Kardashian herself. Now the company is hoping to extend that success to a stable of music stars: having already announced licensing deals with Katy Perry and Britney Spears, this week Glu added Nicki Minaj to the roster.
The Minaj deal is multi-year, with the game expected to launch in the summer of 2016, following Perry and Spears onto the app stores. You certainly can’t accuse Glu of being unambitious with all these licences. “In a lot of ways, Glu is on track to become the Universal Music of gaming,” its CEO Niccolo de Masi told analysts in the company’s financial call this week. “We’re obviously so successful with building out the pipeline here and we are the trusted partner for celebrities to work within the interactive space.” Katy Perry’s game will be important to watch when it comes out later this year, however: for all her social popularity, will her fanbase play (and pay) for a mobile game in similar quantities to Kardashian’s?
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