Faded child-star and Hollywood hell raiser Lindsay Lohan is the latest celebrity to lend her likeness to a smartphone game about how the rich and famous lead their lives in tinsel town.
But unlike the incredibly lucrative Kim Kardashian game (reportedly making €68m in profits this year), Lindsay Lohan’s the Price of Fame is a satirically snarky look at the excesses of the Hollywood lifestyle, with the entire thrust of the gameplay based on winning as many fans as possible.
At the end of each level, fame brings money, and the game then encourages players to upgrade their lifestyles with meaningless fad trinkets. Players get encouragement to become a member of the A-list with rally calls from Lindsay including “Buy some stupid celebrity stuff,” and “Gender is a social construct and so is your persona.”
As for the cost of fame, the game makes money through in-app purchases, just like in Kim Kardashian Hollywood. Except that in Li-Lo's app, the game's developers say the purchases mock the emptiness of the Hollywood elite culture; players can sign on for ‘conspicuous consumption’ habits like adopting a raw food diet, can treat their entourage to a party bus or adopt a baby and give it Botox. Players can even punch members of the paparazzi, and use a team of lawyers to get them out of hot water.
Created by Space Inch, the game’s tongue-in-cheek approach has attracted attention online. While the monotonous gameplay – all players do is swipe the screen – has been universally panned, the satirical message behind the game has been likened to a piece of performance art.
Which might be the only performance the Mean Girls’ actress can feasibly expect a payoff from for a while yet…
See the trailer for 'Lindsay Lohan's the Price of Fame' below: