Inspired by Kim Kardashian, Filipino celebrities launch games

First row from L-R: Filipino celebrities Kim Atienza, Erwan Heussaff, Isabelle Daza, Anne Curtis with Xurpas founders Raymond Racaza and Nix Nolledo.

Four celebrities in the Philippines are following in the footsteps of US reality show star Kim Kardashian by diving into the world of mobile games.

Anne Curtis, her boyfriend Erwan Heussaff, and good friends Kim Atienza and Isabelle Daza – all influential stars in the Philippines – have formed a gaming startup together with technology company Xurpas.

The venture, called Xeleb, is 67 percent owned by Xurpas and the rest is split among the four celebrities. It has a paid-in capital of PHP 20 million (US$442,000).

“We’re leading celebrity games in the Philippines. We’re excited about this because we’re not just transforming an industry, we’re defining it,” says Xurpas COO Raymond Racaza.

Kardashian gold

The idea for the new company started when Racaza was training with Heussaff, Atienza, and Daza for a triathlon event. “After a run […] we were talking about Kim Kardashian: Hollywood and we said, ‘Why don’t we make a version for Filipinos?’” he recalls.

The Kardashian game’s record-setting success created an entirely new genre in casual games, says Racaza. Since its launch in 2014, the game has been downloaded over 28 million times and played for over 11 billion minutes. It made a whopping US$74 million last year.

Xeleb is all about celebrity-branded games. Its first game, Anne Galing (a play on the Filipino expression “Ang galing!”, which means “It’s good!”), is a match-three game similar to Bejeweled and Candy Crush but with a twist. It allows players to shop for virtual clothes, build a wardrobe, and personalize Curtis’ in-game outfits. Like Kardashian, Curtis lent her voice and likeness to the mobile game.

Three more mobile games that are built around the personalities of the other celebrities will be launched one after another later this year.

Android first

Xeleb’s games will be available first on Android. “Our priority is really Android because 95 percent of smartphones in the Philippines are Android,” says Xurpas president and CEO Nix Nolledo. “At some point, we will build iOS versions but to be completely honest, all our resources are currently focused on deploying the games on Android.”

The games will be free for download on Google Play, but users will have to pay PHP 5 (US$0.11) to play them for 24 hours.

Xurpas is banking on the popularity of the celebrities to amass users. “We’re quite optimistic that a similar take-up [as the Kardashian game] will happen, of course within the Philippine context. Time will tell, data will tell if our instincts are correct,” Nolledo says.