Kim Kardashian: Hollywood publisher Glu Mobile has appointed former EA Mobile GM Nick Earlas its new CEO.

Earl joined Glu as President of Global Studios in November 2015 and has also previously worked at Kabam and Eidos.

Earl replaces Niccolo De Masi in the role, who has moved into the position of Executive Chairman.

Rising star

The publisher has also acquired a controlling interest in California-based Covet: Fashion developer Crowdstar for $45.5 million.

Glu said it felt the deal had the potential to offer significant user acquisition possibilities as well as increase advertising revenues.

The publisher stated it hopes to become the leader in the fashion game category following the deal.
Crowdstar’s flagship IP, Covet: Fashion, has surpassed 30 million downloads worldwide and was the 80th Top Grossing App Store app on November 2nd.

The studio is currently working on Design Home, which is in soft launch in Canada.

Strike out

Amongst all the announcements was Glu’s financial report for Q3 2016. Revenues for the three months ending September 30th came in at $51.4 million, a $12 million drop from the $63.3 million it took during the same period in 2015.

The publisher said its revenues were driven by titles such as Tap Sports Baseball 2016, Cooking Dash 2016, Racing Rivals, Gordon Ramsay Dash and Kim Kardashian: Hollywood.

The company reported a net loss of $43.7 million for the third quarter, compared to a net income of $158,000 in Q3 2015. This is due to the acquisition of a controlling stake in Crowdstar.

Despite the loss, Glu Mobile said it currently has no debts and holds cash and cash equivalents of $147.5 million.

“While our third quarter results included royalty impairments from underperforming titles, we believe that we made meaningful progress on our evergreen strategy of deepening monetisation of our biggest spenders and most engaged players in our genre-leading live games,” said de Masi.