SynWorlds » Living Like the Kardashians, Via Smartphone

It was quite a glamorous weekend. First, I flew to Los Angeles to star in a commercial for athletic wear. Then I flew right back to New York, where I met my handsome boyfriend, Christian, a famous music producer, for a romantic date at our favorite nightspot. That was all on Saturday. On Sunday, I jetted off to Miami with my entourage for a glitzy club appearance.

I don’t always live like this. In fact, in flesh and blood, I never do. This was a candy-colored fantasy in a virtual world that I can indulge in, thanks to a mobile game about becoming a Hollywood celebrity.

It’s great, mindless fun — similar, at least in its addictive quality, to mobile games like Candy Crush or Angry Birds. What I found most surprising about this one is that much of its allure comes from Kim Kardashian, the celebrity, who is a major presence in the game.

Before you roll your eyes, let me be the first to say that when I first heard of this game, I had doubts, too. I’m not a huge consumer of reality television or the tabloids, two areas where Kim and other Kardashians are prominent. But whatever you may think of that clan, it’s hard to deny its business prowess.

I found the online game, called “Kim Kardashian: Hollywood,” an impressive example of that prowess. It drops players into the celebrity world and challenges them to become rich and famous by making friends and booking jobs. Ms. Kardashian, who is married to the rapper and music producer Kanye West — and who announced last week that she was changing her name to Kim Kardashian West — acts in this virtual world as a glitzy sherpa, offering players tips and the occasional gift.

The game, released in late June, is among the top 10 most recently downloaded apps for the iPhone, according to Apple. The game is also available on the Google platform. Glu Mobile, which made the game, declined to share figures on how many people have actually played it.

As a business proposition, the game — which may be downloaded free — encourages players to spend their real-world money on “k-stars,” a game currency that enables them to buy extravagant clothing and hairstyles for their avatars in this virtual world. The game has been producing real cash: Glu Mobile said it generated $1.6 million in its first five days of release, but the company did not disclose more up-to-date numbers. It said Ms. Kardashian receives an unspecified portion of the game’s earnings.

Part of the game’s appeal is its sleek design, which Glu Mobile has modeled after some of its other successful products, like “Diner Dash,” a waitress simulation, and “Stardom,” another aspirational celebrity game. But perhaps more important is Ms. Kardashian’s personality, which envelops the game.

Executives at Glu said the idea for the game was theirs. They approached Ms. Kardashian, they said, she readily agreed, and they began work on it in early 2013. Ms. Kardashian could not be reached for comment; Niccolo de Masi, chief executive of Glu Mobile, said Ms. Kardashian selected many of the virtual clothing items, hairstyles and accessories that players can buy for their characters.

And she appears in the game itself, as a pretty cartoon character. Recorded versions of her real voice pipe up to offer moral support to players as they climb toward stardom. The game is peppered with references to the Kardashian brand, and includes insider jokes and winks about the family and its history. For example, there’s a scene in which Ms. Kardashian’s character advises players to hire a “momager,” a sly reference to her mother, Kris Jenner, who helps manage her career.

For a game maker, Ms. Kardashian’s market reach is tantalizing: It spans television, where she stars on reality shows, and social media, where she posts highly stylized photographs of herself with her husband in exotic locations and in dazzling outfits. “Her audience is huge,” Mr. de Masi said. “She’s moved beyond the reality-star status, and when audiences get bigger, they get more mass market.”

Her lifestyle is appealing enough to have helped sustain “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” her family’s television show, for years. It is in its ninth season. The Kardashians also have connections with clothing lines and retail stores.

Dozens of celebrities have flirted with technology partnerships and businesses, but more often than not the results have been disappointing — and the efforts disappear from the public conversation not long after they are announced. There have been exceptions, like the actor Ashton Kutcher, who leads a successful investment firm that has put money into start-ups like Airbnb and Spotify. But most of Mr. Kutcher’s investments have been behind the scenes.

Brian Blau, an analyst at Gartner who follows the mobile game world, said celebrity endorsements were generally not enough to catapult a new game, or even a new company, into success. The momentum of the game rests largely on Ms. Kardashian’s appeal as a lifestyle brand.

The success of the game is “because it’s Kim,” Mr. Blau said. “It’s much more than an endorsement or tie-in.”

In some ways, she may represent a new generation of celebrity entrepreneurs, those who don’t merely write checks or appear on billboards next to products, but who treat their own lifestyles as the products that fans will want to buy. The Kardashian game is marketed as an invitation to experience her world, even if only as a cartoon fantasy.

Mr. Blau said he was skeptical about the game’s longevity, and I tend to agree.

The popularity of mobile games is often tied to cultural zeitgeists that build upon themselves and then fade, only to be replaced like other entertainments. Consider Flappy Bird, which involves controlling a flying bird; it’s time has come and, for many of us, has already gone. That may well happen to the Kardashian game, too.

But I’m not worrying about it. Right now, I have another acting class to attend and gigs to book, so I can save up to buy my virtual mansion and keep traveling in the Kardashian fantasy world.