Disney buys Tapulous, maker of iPhone games

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The Walt Disney Co. confirmed Thursday that it has bought Tapulous Inc., the Palo Alto, Calif., developer of the Tap Tap Revenge series of iPhone games.

The deal is Disney’s first acquisition of a company devoted solely to developing apps for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, said Steve Wadsworth, president of Disney Interactive Media Group.

‘It reinforces that we see the entire mobile space as a huge long-term growth opportunity,’ Wadsworth said. ‘iPhone is a critical component of that.’

Tapulous’ games have been downloaded 35 million times and are some of the most popular iPhone games. An estimated one-third of all iPhone users have downloaded the company’s music games, which feature hundreds of songs from artists including Lady Gaga and Metallica.

The original Tap Tap Revenge game, pictured on the right, sells for $1.99 in Apple’s iTunes store. The most recent version, Tap Tap Revenge 3, is free and comes with 100 songs, but additional song packs cost 99 cents to $2.99.

Tapulous was funded by a number of Silicon Valley heavy hitters, including Sun Microsystems co-founder Andreas von Bechtolsheim and Salesforce.com Chief Executive Marc Benioff.

-- Alex Pham