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I wasn’t positive today would ever come: Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, the as soon as wildly fashionable cell RPG during which gamers needed to climb the Tinseltown ranks from the E-list to A-list, is shutting down. 10 years in the past, this Android and iOS title dominated every retailer’s obtain charts, made avid gamers out of standard ol’ individuals, and fascinated then-Kotaku staffer Patricia Hernandez. However as we speak Kim Kardashian launched a press release to TMZ saying its imminent doom.
“I’m so grateful from the underside of my coronary heart to everybody who has liked and performed Kim Kardashian: Hollywood prior to now 10 years,” Kardashian’s assertion reads. “This journey has meant a lot to me however I’ve realized that it’s time to focus that power into different passions. I need to thank the Glu staff and the many individuals behind the scenes who’ve labored diligently on making it a hit. I will probably be eternally impressed by this group that we constructed collectively.”
TMZ shared an in-game screenshot of the display screen that now greets gamers who boot up Kim Kardashian: Hollywood: Ray Powers, the fictional reporter determined to dish grime in your in-game character, grins alongside a “Sundown Discover.” A pop-up reads:
This recreation not affords in-app purchases and has been faraway from app shops. Gamers can use any current in-game digital foreign money till April 8, 2024, after which the sport will change into inaccessible. Thanks for supporting Kim Kardashian: Hollywood!
On the backside of the pop-up is an ominous countdown to the sport’s demise date. Kotaku can verify the sport not comes up in searches on both the Apple or Android app shops.
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood was a gaming phenomenon, and a testomony to the enterprise brilliance of the Kardashian clan. Not solely did it cleverly attraction to informal cell avid gamers, a then-burgeoning new focus group, however Kardashian reportedly had a hand in its improvement course of, “[approving] each merchandise of clothes [used in the game]” and [discussing] options…talk about occasions, updates,” and extra, in keeping with a 2014 Wall Avenue Journal interview with Glu’s then-CEO Niccolo De Masi. (A former Glu Cellular lead instructed Kotaku over e-mail that Kardashian didn’t approve each merchandise used in-game, simply “property that had been related to her likeness”.) After its summer time 2024 debut, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood was a runaway success, incomes over $40 million and netting over 22 million downloads in its first quarter, in keeping with IB Occasions. Shit, Polygon even named it one of many 100 greatest video games of the last decade.
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood proved that informal avid gamers can and do need to put time, cash, and power into video games that click on with them, and it seems that rising via the ranks of cutthroat and cunty fictional Los Angeles clicked with tens of millions. It’s a disgrace it has to die, however we will thank Kim Kardashian: Hollywood for paving the way in which for video games like Hiya Kitty Island Journey and different video games for the women and the gays.
Kotaku reached out to EA, which bought developer Glu Cellular again in 2021, for remark.
Replace 01/04/2024 at 11:45 a.m. ET: Up to date with info from former Glu Cellular developer.
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