The criticism of Tapulous' focus on one app is ignoring the economics of the app store (http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/06/full-an...). There are tons and tons of amazing, high-quality apps, and yet how many of them ever break into massive profitability?
If you have an app store hit, it would be foolish to try to diversify given the near impossibility of any single app attaining real success.
> If you have an app store hit, it would be foolish to try to diversify given the near impossibility of any single app attaining real success.
Indeed - and keep in mind the Tapulous guys had an iPhone hit before the App Store. Back when Steve was trying to prevent app installs, Tap Tap Revolution was one of the first games available on the platform period.
Beyond that, Tap Tap is itself a platform for selling music. I'm surprised they don't allow people to buy albums within the app, honestly, because I've purchased at least three albums because I first heard the song on Tap Tap (the iPad version, in my case).
I imagine it's mostly licensing issues and the fact that this would set up Tap Tap as a competitor to iTunes, which would surely get them booted out of the App Store.
It's best to think of Tap Tap as an entertainment factory, which (I'm guessing) is why Disney is so interested in it. They now have a direct line to quickly growing platforms (iPhone and iPad).
Wild guess: $15 million for a small company milking an one-hit wonder. With security and resources the dev team can finally move on and make something cool: Club Penguin for iOS!
They'd be a one hit wonder if they only succeeded with their first version of TTR two years ago when the app store first came out. They're actually many hit wonders. Smart move by disney here.
Tapulous has largely failed to do anything other than Tap Tap Revenge. Twinkle, Tweetsville, FriendBook, Fortune, and Collage have all been abandoned. Riddim Ribbon hasn't seen any updates in months (not even adding new music tracks for download). To me, it's somewhat worrisome. And, of course this is completely subjective, but their music choice has gotten really bad recently. Lady Gaga, Coldplay, and Dance were all really good games with great music, and there were some nice indie tracks in Tap Tap Revenge 1. Now it's trending towards low quality pop music and it will only get worse when they start doing Disney artists. Again, that last part is 100% my opinion, and I'm not sure if it means much in terms of the company's success.
That's what I'm thinking. Tap Tap Revenge is the only thing they've been able to pull of successfully, but it wasn't even their idea — they bought it from an iPhone developer from the pre-SDK jailbreak days when the game was called Tap Tap Revolution. All of their original ideas have not been nearly as successful. I can't see any reason other than talent and TTR for the acquisition.
Not knocking their hustle. Every company needs cash money to keep the lights on but they've only been doing TTR and branded TTR for the past two years. Twinkle, the closed in network, was cute but didn't take off. Kerfuffle over Contacts made it disappear.
Point is the Tapulous team has experience and capability producing really high quality iOS apps. Now with Disney IP and security they have no excuses left to do something more interesting than dots that blip to a Hannah Montana beat.
Now with Disney IP and security they have no excuses left to do something more interesting than dots that blip to a Hannah Montana beat.
They have no excuses not to do something more interesting…, right?
Anyway, one has to give it to them: they managed to create a huge brand based on a game concept that already had a huge brand attached to it outside the iPhone world, namely "Dance Dance Revolution".
I do feel that their website showing 14 TTR games out of 16 apps (apparently they had more but they are not showed there) shows that they've been milking the concept and brand to death, but in the end, that's still a major accomplishment. Especially with that kind of exit.
Actually Tapulous just remade a 13 year old Japanese game called BeatMania, which still has a huge following. So big that hackers can make decent living selling custom $200 BeatMania control boxes.
So the fascination with tapping on dots isn't that out of the norm. Their licensing contracts isn't so much a reflection on their tastes, I mean, the negotiation powers isn't with them when concerning record labels.
Well said. Tapulous' talent with (iOS + disney's ip)*(acquisition of wideload games bringing on board Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian) equals huge potential.
All kidding aside, Club Penguin for iOS would be a hit. Parents could let their little ones explore their iPad or iPod Touch in the safety of Club Penguin. I believe Club Penguin is still in flash at this point.
Not only that, but Disney and Apple are in bed with each other so I suspect Tapulous will be able to skip a lot of the BS and be featured prominently every time they release something.
If you have an app store hit, it would be foolish to try to diversify given the near impossibility of any single app attaining real success.