Tapulous
 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary of Disney Interactive Studios |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games Computer software |
| Founded | Palo Alto, California, U.S. (February 2008)[1] |
| Founder | Bart Decrem Andrew Lacy |
| Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Bart Decrem (CEO) Andrew Lacy (COO) |
| Products | Tap Tap |
| Owner | The Walt Disney Company |
Number of employees | 20[2] |
| Parent | Disney Interactive Studios |
| Website | Tapulous.com |
Tapulous Inc. is an American software and video game developer and publisher headquartered in Palo Alto, California. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company as part of the Disney Interactive Media Group. The company's most profitable products are the Tap Tap series of music games, which has surpassed over thirty-five million downloads.[3]
Tapulous was founded in February 2008 with the specific intention of developing software applications for the iOS platform. The company's Tap Tap Revenge gained at least one million players in less than one month of availability, and was the most-downloaded free game of the App Store in 2008. Building on the success of the game, Tapulous has since heavily focused on the Tap Tap Revenge series by expansion and partnership with Universal Records. As of December 2009, the company's sales total nearly $1 million per month.[4] In July 2010, the company was acquired by The Walt Disney Company.
History
On January 9, 2007 Apple announced the iPhone hardware device along with iOS.[5] In July of that year, the platform was released, and by August the first third-party video game was developed for it using the jailbreak technique.[6] With the advent of unofficial applications being distributed across the internet, Apple announced the availability of a native SDK for the platform in October 2007.[7]
As a reaction to the announcement of the SDK, Tapulous was formed in January 2008 with the initial name of "Gogo Apps". Its co-founders were Bart Decrem, an entrepreneur who helped launch the Firefox browser and was the founding CEO of Flock, Inc. (developer of the Flock web browser) and Andrew Lacy, a consultant of McKinsey & Company. The company thereafter changed its name to the current one, and hired developers Tyler McGowen, to develop Tap Tap Revenge as a launch title for the App Store, although the actual release date was eventually several days after the launch of the store.[8] Meanwhile, Layton Duncan and Tristan O'Tierney developed Twinkle as another launch product.[9] Initial investment in the company, which totaled around $1.8 million USD, was provided by Ben T. Smith, IV Andreas Bechtolsheim and Roy Thiele-Sardina via HighBAR Ventures, Marc Benioff, Rob Theis, the late Rajeev Motwani, Khosla Ventures, Katrina Garnett, Jeff Clavier, Aydin Senkut and others.[10]
Within a month of publishing, Tap Tap Revenge, the game became one of the most popular applications available for the iOS, and had over one million players, and was installed on about twenty percent of all iPhone and iPod Touch devices.[11] In December 2008, it was announced that the game was the most-downloaded free game in the App Store for the year.[12] In April, 2009, comScore announced that Tap Tap Revenge was the most-installed app on the App Store.[13] Tapulous continued to release sequels of the game as a part of the Tap Tap series, and signed a contract with Universal Records in June 2009 to produce promotional games for the series which feature the company's artists.[14]
On July 1, 2010, Tapulous was acquired by The Walt Disney Company and incorporated into Disney Interactive Studios as a wholly-owned subsidiary, part of Disney Interactive Media Group.[15][16]
See also
- Tap Tap
- Tap Tap Revenge
- Tap Tap Revenge 2
- Tap Tap Revenge 3
- Riddim Ribbon feat. The Black Eyed Peas
- Riddim Ribbon
References
- ^ Lashinsky, Adam (2008-08-14). "How the Apple iPhone ecosystem works". Fortune. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ "Tapulous Staff". Tapulous. Retrieved 2010-01-07.
- ^ Decrem, Bart (2010-07-01). "Tapping on!". Tapulous. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
- ^ Madway, Gabriel (2009-12-20). "Small iPhone developer Tapulous sees big success". Reuters. Retrieved 2009-12-21.
{{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Honan, Mathew (2007-01-09). "Apple unveils iPhone". Macworld. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
{{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in:|publisher=(help) - ^ Topolsky, Joshua (2007-08-06). "First third-party "game" app appears for iPhone". Engadget. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ Gardiner, Bryan (2007-10-07-17). "Developers on iPhone SDK: OMG! ABFT!". Wired News. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Arrington, Michael (2008-07-15). "Tap Tap Revenge For iPhone Launches Late, Surges Up App Store Rankings". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ O'Grady, Jason D. (2008-08-27). "Tapulous developer fired". ZDNet. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ Kincaid, Jason (2008-07-09). "Tapulous Wants To Be The RockYou Of Apple's App Store". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ Kincaid, Jason (2008-07-31). "Tap Tap Revenge Approaches 1 Million Users, Music Industry Takes Notice". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ Caron, Frank (2008-12-03). "Apple reveals most downloaded iPhone games of 2008". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ comScore (2008-04-07). "Tapulous's Tap Tap Revenge Has Been Downloaded By 1 Out Of 3 iTunes Application Users". comScore. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ "Universal Music Group (UMG) and Tapulous Partner to Bring New Music Games to the iPhone/iPod Touch". Universal Music Group. 2009-06-10. Retrieved 2009-07-07.
- ^ "Disney acquires Tapulous" from Techcrunch.com
- ^ "Disney Acquires Tapulous". Disney Interactive Media Group. 2010-07-01. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
