During what continues to be a tricky time financially for the firm, Glu Mobile is turning to licenses in a bid to stimulate growth in its business.

The company has just announced a deal with US celebrity Kim Kardashian to develop and publish a title featuring both the star's voice and likeness for spring 2014.

Kardashian's role in the game will be to mentor players on fashion and hairstyles as they look to "navigate themselves into a successful Hollywood lifestyle".

Social star

In development for iOS and Android, the unveiling of the as of yet unnamed game comes a matter of weeks after Glu posted a net loss of $8 million in its most recent quarter, with the firm having raised $14 million in a public stock offering back in September to keep things ticking over.

According to Glu CEO Niccolo de Masi, it's Kardashian's social reach that's the big draw here, helping the publisher reach what could proved to be a sizeable audience.

"We look forward to leveraging Kim Kardashian's brand and fan base of 18 million Twitter followers, 15 million Facebook fans, and 11 million Instagram followers," said de Masi.

"We anticipate that the combination of Kim's creative input with Glu's leading development and publishing platform will create a uniquely compelling celebrity game experience."

Mixed approach

De Masi has previously claimed Glu will primarily focus on shooters and action games in the months ahead, thanks to the success of Deer Hunter 2014.

"When you look at consoles, shooters are the core genre. There's a fundamental demand for these games," de Masi told us at the start of November.

"Over the past year, we've seen a lot of success for strategy, casino and puzzle games on mobile. Those games can't get any bigger. Equally, I don't see why there won't be a correlation between the success of core games on console and the success of core games on mobile.

"Glu is the only company that's putting action games into the top grossing charts."

[source: Glu Mobile]