Tap Tap Revenge set to become a force for the Mouse.
Disney has acquired iPhone games developer Tapulous for an undisclosed amount, and plans to use it to bring more social features to Disney's range of iPhone apps.
The deal was announced by Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem last night on the company's blog.
"As part of Disney Interactive Media Group, we’ll develop more games, more quickly and with the resources of the world’s leading entertainment company," he wrote.
"We will continue to develop apps that live at the intersection of music and gaming, but we’ll also push into new and exciting areas of mobile social entertainment."
Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge games have been downloaded more than 35 million times from the App Store, with more than one billion songs played on them.
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The obvious next step would be to release Tap Tap games for Disney's stable of teen music artists: the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato and others.
However, it seems there's a bigger strategy than that in mind. Decrem tells TechCrunch that Tapulous will be "at the centre of Disney's mobile strategy: They have 40 apps in the app store today. There is Disney, Marvel, ESPN, Pixar—the idea of combining what we know about games in the app store with Disney’s brand and ID is exciting."
Disney's Andrew Wadsworth tells MocoNews that Decrem and fellow co-founder Andrew Lacy will "take on leadership roles running our entire mobile operation".
The acquisition is a significant milestone for iPhone developers: it's one of the biggest examples of a new brand (Tap Tap Revenge) built exclusively on iPhone leading to an acquisition by a traditional media company.
