6
fans, and it also provides the Kardashians with multiple platforms on which to advertise each of their endeavors. The more you participate in the transmedia aspects of their business, the more information you are privileged to as a fan and viewer. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood is successful and popular in the context of the constant presence of the Kardashians in the media. Kim Kardashian: Hollywood makes liberal use of social gaming aspects to further compel the player. The casual gaming industry has found effective ways to exploit players and their money through friendly competition and collaboration. iPhone games have followed Facebook’ s lead and realized that if you get people’ s friends hooked, you can get them hooked as well. In Kim Kardashian: Hollywood, when you become friends with another player in the game, you can invite them to do a photo shoot with you, which also allows you to get more stars more easily. You can also date people you are friends with in the game. Dates require a lot of energy and money, but they also boost your celebrity level. As the game says,“ Dating famous people will get you more fans, too.” This means that if you want to date someone in the game that you know in real life, it benefits you if they do well in the game, and vice versa.
As embarrassing as it may be, there is an added element of peer pressure to continue playing if your friends or significant other are also still playing. There is even a leaderboard that tracks your fan base and celebrity status in comparison to your friends, other users, and some of the made up characters in the game. This competitive aspect adds to the temptation of in-app purchases. Having a visible leaderboard in the game is an incentive for players to use any means possible to beat out the people they know in real life. Both the use of time constraints and the use of competition seem to be effective means of eliciting spending from players, particularly in comparison to games without this format.
Since the game is part of their business, it also includes in-app purchases. As someone who avoids in-app purchases at all costs, Kim Kardashian: Hollywood makes them very tempting. Every action in the game costs energy, which you only have a limited amount of. Energy is replenished automatically over time, but you can also buy more through the app store. Photo shoots and commercial gigs have a time limit in place, so once you start, if you don’ t finish in, say, five hours, you get a bad score on the gig and lose fans or form a bad relationship with
6