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Tiesto tracks released inside Tap Tap music game
Disney's always had kind of an identity complex with Tap Tap Revenge. The brand is one of the oldest on the App Store -- it was originally called Tap Tap Revolution, and was eventually picked up by Tapulous and turned into Tap Tap Revenge, a sort of DDR-style music game. Then, of course, Tapulous was bought by Disney, and its CEO, Bart Decrem, was put in charge of Disney's entire mobile division, where they've had significant success with other titles and brands. But Tap Tap has always been an interesting one. It has definitely benefited from Disney's ties to the music industry, and there's no question that the in-app purchases of popular songs help the app's profitability. But at the same time, it seems Disney isn't quite sure what to do with Tap Tap. The company, along with Decrem's insight, keeps coming up with different ways to try to tie together the relatively ancient Tap Tap gameplay with the Disney empire at large. And here's another one. DJ Tiesto is planning to release a new album, called Club Mix: Volume Two Miami, and he's signed a deal with Disney to debut it in the Tap Tap Revenge app itself. Starting today, fans will be able to download certain tracks from the album for free in Tap Tap Revenge, and then over a two-week period, various songs will be available to play for a limited time, allowing for a preview of the entire album. Disney's also giving away copies of the album in the game itself, and the two brands are just generally promoting the heck out of each other. It's not a bad idea at all, and it'll probably work. Tiesto's audience probably lines right up with the people playing this game, and spinning an album for the first time through an app is an intriguing strategy. But it definitely feels like Disney is poking around for something that works with Tap Tap Revenge, and if this doesn't, they'll have to dream up something else.
Apple App Store, iPhone 4 awarded Guinness World Records
Guinness World Records has awarded Apple several world records today for the App Store and the iPhone 4. Additionally, several iOS developers were also awarded world records. Here's the breakdown from the Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer's Edition: Fastest-Selling Portable Gaming System -- iPhone 4: Guinness states that the iPhone 4's first-day sales estimates of 1.5 million make it the fastest selling game system in history. By comparison the PSP only sold 200,000 units its first day and the Nintendo DS sold 600,000 units in its first week. Most Popular Application Marketplace; Largest Downloadable Video Game Store; and Largest Launch Line-up of Any Gaming System -- Apple App Store: As of the time Guinness made its records decision, the App Store had over 6.5 billion downloads and 259,470 apps for purchase or free download making it the most popular downloadable app store in the world. Of those apps, 37,362 were games, making the App Store the largest video game download store in the world. Finally, when the App Store launched on July 10, 2008, the App Store featured over 500 apps, including 145 games, making it the "Largest Launch Line-up of Any Gaming System." Apple wasn't the only one to receive app accolades, however. iOS developers were also awarded titles by Guinness: Angry Birds got Top Paid-For App Store Game in Most Countries with more than 6.5 million downloads; Plants vs. Zombies was awarded Fastest-Selling iPhone/iPod Strategy Game with 300,000 paid downloads in its first nine days on sale; and Tap Tap Revenge was awarded the Most Popular iPhone Game Series with a combined 15 million downloads for all the Tap Tap games. Guinness World Records 2011 Gamer's Edition is available on Amazon. [via LA Times]
Android's in-app billing makes a dent: Dungeon Defenders free on Android Market
Dungeon Defenders: First Wave cost $3 when it first came out. This week, the iOS version will cost you ninety-nine cents. But if you want to play the Unreal Engine-powered tower defense game today, you can have it for free -- developer Trendy Entertainment is now leaning on Android's new in-app billing system to pay for the whole thing. We can't give Trendy all the credit, of course, as Glu Mobile's Gun Bros and Tapulous' Tap Tap Revenge 4 are doing the same thing, but to our knowledge both of them were free to play from day one. Free-to-play gaming has been a controversial proposition in the console and PC gaming space -- most publishers would just like to sell a game once, and call it a day. On phone, however, where apps are expected to be cheap, it could indeed make more sense to charge users for items and upgrades than to have users "buy" the game. Either way, we penny-pinchers are pleased as punch with the idea. PR after the break.
GDC 2011: The latest from Disney Mobile
Disney's mobile gaming division had a table claimed in the company's hotel suit during GDC 2011, and I stopped by to see Disney's Jeff Nuzzi and check out the company's latest offerings. There were a few titles on display to be revealed later this year, but the current focus was on JellyCar 3, the latest in Disney Mobile's most popular line of casual gaming apps. The game (the original version of which was designed by a Disney developer in his spare time) is due for an update very soon, which will add new cars, the ability to import your own pictures for cars and a new level pack called "Time and Space" to play around with. Nuzzi also talked to me about the Tron app (released with the movie last year) and how the company's general strategy around iOS apps is going. Read on for more.
Android in-app purchases hands-on (video)
Today Google announced that Android in-app purchases are coming to the platform and we were able to get a demo by Paul Sebastien of Disney. He showed us how to buy a track pack (Far East Movement, for those who care) in Tap Tap Revenge 4 over 3G on a Nexus S, and using a fake credit card! It's interesting to note that the in-app purchase UI matches the look and feel of the new Android Market and developers can implement the functionality in a few simple steps. In-app purchases should start rolling out in various Android apps this spring. In the meantime, take a look at our video after the break.
Apple updates 'All-Time Top Apps' prior to 10 billionth app download
As we move closer to the 10 billionth app sold on the App Store, Apple has updated its all-time top paid and free iPhone and iPad app lists, showing the top 200,000 or so apps on the store, ranked in order of sales and downloads. There aren't a lot of surprises in here -- if you've been following the App Store pretty closely over the first few years of its life, odds are that you'll know about most of these titles. But it is interesting to see them ranked. On the iPhone, Doodle Jump takes the crown as the most popular paid app of all time, with Tap Tap Revenge 3, Pocket God and Angry Birds filling out the top four. In free apps, Facebook and other free utilities are on top, with Backflip Studios' Paper Toss the only game in the top few entries. The iPad lists are interesting, being only a year old. There's still a fart app in there, under paid apps, surprisingly. The paid list is a strange mix of games and utilities, while the free apps are a little more obvious, mirroring a lot of the iPhone apps list (with iBooks coming in about halfway out of the top 10). As I said, all pretty obvious choices at this point, but still, very interesting to see. Good luck to everyone on being that 10 billionth app, and congrats as always to Apple on building such a solid platform over the past few years. [via MacStories]
360 MacDev Keynote: Mike Lee's "Dirty Jokes and Code"
360|MacDev is underway in Denver, Colorado, and it's starting with a bang. While many developer conferences begin with a boring, bland, and somewhat cookie-cutter keynote, this morning's keynote was a NSFW -- but definitely memorable -- talk laced with dirty jokes by Mike Lee (at right). Mike has done a lot of coding on some of the more popular software for Mac and iOS, including Delicious Library and Tap Tap Revenge, and is famous for his insightful talks on software design. The talk, entitled "Dirty Jokes and Code," was more than just the jokes, though. Through applicable off-color jokes, Lee essentially taught the attendees a lot of the important facets of how to produce apps that are incredibly useful and usable for buyers. Whether it was a rant against overuse of splash screens, a warning about errors in localizing software, or how one little issue can cause a user to go ballistic, Lee got his point across to the attendees.
Tapulous integrated into Disney Mobile, releases Katy Perry Revenge
Disney buying Tapulous was one of the most high-profile App Store acquisitions so far, and here are the first fruits of that partnership. First up, Disney reports that Tapulous has been integrated into the rest of the company -- the studio is now fully part of the "Disney Mobile" division, so all future releases will come from the Disney Mobile name rather than the Tapulous brand. That contradicts with the actual App Store listing at the moment -- there's no mention of Disney in any of Tapulous' app listings. But that information can take a while to change, so we'll have to see if Disney updates those listings. Second, the studio's first game under the Disney banner is out now -- Katy Perry Revenge is a Tap Tap Revenge-style title built specifically for Katy Perry songs. There are ten songs from the pop singer in the app, from "I Kissed a Girl" to "Teenage Dream," and there's lots of other fan-specific material, as well as a Facebook connection to share scores and updates. It's available for US $4.99, the same price as Tapulous' other artist-targeted Revenge titles. So it sounds like things are both different and the same for Tapulous -- they've been brought into the company as a whole, but they're either cleaning out the queue of old projects (this new game easily seems as if it could have been done without Disney's help), or continuing to work on the same type of app as before. We'll have to see what Tapulous releases in the future now that they're brought into the Disney Mobile division.
Disney buys iPhone music game giant Tapulous
If you own an iPhone or iPod touch, there's a pretty good chance you've played one of the Tap Tap Revenge games. Like, for instance, Nickelback Revenge. Well, Disney has evidently been keeping an eye on the developer of those games, Tapulous, because it's gone and struck a deal to make the company a wholly-owned subsidiary. (Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.) Tapulous founders Bart Decrem and Andrew Lacy will take on new -- yet still key -- roles within the Disney Interactive Media Group. As for the Tapulous development staff, they're staying put, but will be required to wear comically large white gloves from now on. (We kid. Hopefully.) Steve Wadsworth, president of DIMG, commented on the deal, saying, "We welcome the Tapulous team to the Disney family and look forward to integrating their popular games into Disney's offerings." Yes, Tapulous will keep making games for iDevices -- they'll just probably feature more anthropomorphic animals.
Tapulous acquired by Disney
Disney has bought Tapulous outright, according to Techcrunch. The iPhone gaming company was one of the first on the App Store, and has been extremely successful with its Tap Tap Radiation and Tap Tap Revenge music titles. There's no word yet on how much money was involved in the deal, but Disney has been interested in both gaming and the iDevices for a while, and obviously Tapulous proved that it could meet the Mouse House's needs. Bart Decrem, Tapulous' CEO, will reportedly become a VP at Disney. Very impressive on Tapulous' part. There are more details coming, according to Techcrunch, so we'll update this post when we see any other news on the deal.
Nickelback gets own Tap Tap Revenge, suddenly considers music games 'very cool'
Tapulous, maker of the popular Tap Tap Revenge rhythm games for iPhone, has announced the arrival of the latest entry in the series: Nickelback Revenge. Now, this normally wouldn't rate very high on our interest-o-meters, if not for the critical comments about music games made by Nickelback signer Chad Kroeger back in late 2008, telling gamers to "put down the Guitar Hero" and start real bands. Today, Kroeger is signing a different tune. "The combination of our music and Tapulous' gameplay is very cool," the band's frontman said of the game. "We're excited to give our fans a fun, interactive way to experience our music." Surely not more fun or interactive than playing a real guitar, in a real band. Right, Chad? Right? Hey, at least Nickelback hasn't let its music appear in any other music games, let alone one that uses plastic guitars. What? Oh. Nickelback Revenge (Tapulous, $4.99): App Store Link
Tune Runner rises to the top on a wave of free
There's been some interesting discussion in our comments section lately about Ngmoco's freemium model -- first they made headlines by endorsing it even to the detriment of one of their most popular games, and then they bought Freeverse and the conversation started up again. But while customers don't seem to like the freemium model very much, there's a growing number of examples that go the other way, and here's another: Appy Entertainment is a company that's been doing fairly well with a game called FaceFighter, but last weekend, they decided to drop the price of that game to free, and use the giveaway to promote their newest game, Tune Runner. And the plan worked extremely well -- after just a week, their original music game is rivaling Rock Band and Tap Tap Revenge for downloads. FaceFighter hadn't been doing badly, but offering it up for free not only increased its downloads to several hundred thousand (which sounds like a lot for Appy), but put the new game in front of a whole bunch of people who otherwise might not have heard about it. And Tune Runner is a "freemium" app -- you get the first hit for free, and can buy more premium content inside the app. With an example like this, why would a developer not go with a freemium model? As Freeverse's CEO told us, customers may complain about the model, but assuming your game has the quality to support it, it's the best way to monetize the App Store's huge audience. That's not to say that the paid model should be abandoned for good -- even Appy says they plan to release a paid version of their app with the in-app purchase content already unlocked. But for all of the murmuring about the freemium model, it certainly seems that customers' actions are different than words on the App Store.
Tapulous making a million a month off the App Store
Well, even with rampant piracy, review craziness, and that funky approval process, it's good to hear that someone can still make a truckload of cash on the App Store. According to Reuters, that someone is Tapulous, who is apparently making almost a million dollars a month thanks to twenty million downloads of their Tap Tap Revenge game. We recently talked to Andrew Lacy on the release of said game back in October, and he told us that the game's in-app purchase features (you get the game for cheap, and then have a chance to buy lots of extra music to play in packs and bundles) would be the "first big test of in-app commerce at a much grander scale." Looks like the test was a success. Of course, there's not too many details on how exactly that million dollars comes in -- I'm sure there was a flurry of sales right around the release of the app (as press was dropping), and you'd expect them to be a little higher during the holidays (sales of video games usually are, no matter what platform you're talking about). So it's not completely proven that this kind of income is necessarily sustainable. But still, it's good to hear from the folks at Tapulous that someone can release a game and roll in the cash from Apple's platform.
Of Wolf and Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica on iPhone
Tapulous, a company specializing in games for the iPhone, has added another to its ranks: Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica. The game is available right now in the App Store and fuses the band with the established Tap Tap Revenge experience, allowing gamers to poke their iPhone through some of the band's most famous ditties such as "One" and "Enter Sandman" -- with ten total tracks available. The new edition also sports some added functionality over its regular ol' boring Tap Tap Revenge counterparts: Aside from the usual career mode, there's now a more fast-paced arcade mode where players are "challenged with bombs and other special objects" and a new Bluetooth battle mode that lets players challenge others -- granted you're within the appropriate distance of each other -- to see who's the better iPhone-screen-poker. For those diehard Metallica fans who aren't satisfied with an entire game themed around the band, the title also has other features that allow one to stalk be more in tune (sorry!) with the band's current activities -- including a news ticker and a live message board. Tap Tap Revenge: Metallica ($4.99)
Metallica Revenge: Tapulous takes revenge to the next level
The Tap Tap Revenge empire just became more credible... at least to the Metallica fans out there. Metallica Revenge [iTunes Link] sells for $4.99, but it is not out to make lots of money -- not according to the Associated Press interview with the band's drummer, Lars Ulrich. Ulrich explains that the application itself is really just for fun and that "it's one more thing that'll keep me semi-cool in my kids' eyes for another six months until the next thing comes out." But we think that this is a little bit more than just a cool marketing scheme... it actually has some brand new features never before seen in a Tap Tap Revenge game. It's the first game in the archive to include a Bluetooth Battle mode. In this mode, two devices connect over Bluetooth to play note for note against each other while obtaining power ups that you can toss at your opponent to distract them and move ahead in points. Tapulous touts this game as the most difficult Tap Tap Revenge yet. It has a Hard mode with four rails in landscape and an Extreme mode with five rails in landscape. There has never been a Tap Tap Revenge game with five rails. I'm scared to even try it. The band has also created a contest for those of us who purchase this application. You can win everything from cool Metallica gear to the grand prize of a trip to meet and greet Metallica at a show in Vegas on December 5th. Here's the track list: For Whom the Bell Tolls Fuel King Nothing Sad But True Some Kind of Monster Enter Sandman One Seek & Destroy All Nightmare Long Master of Puppets
Rock Band coming to the iPhone
It's true -- as leaked earlier this week and confirmed yesterday, EA is bringing Harmonix's Rock Band to the iPhone, and it's about what you'd expect: notes come down the screen set to popular music, you tap in certain places in time to the beat, and get a score based on how well you do. Truthfully, I'm a huge Rock Band (and Harmonix) fan in general, but this doesn't excite me much -- the big draw of Rock Band is actually playing with those instruments, and while yes they're plastic and tiny, when you get four people in the same room together playing them, it actually feels like you're jamming in a band.Fortunately, the iPhone version will have both online and bluetooth multiplayer, so you will be able to jam with people, but the gameplay is simply reminiscent of Tap Tap Revenge, which you probably already know about and/or have. It looks like they've gotten most of their songs from the actual Rock Band game; twenty songs with the purchase (no price yet), and then there will be 99 cent packs of two songs each coming out soon. The app's been submitted and it should be out in the store next week.
Push notifications go live on iPhone courtesy of Tap Tap Revenge
iPhone OS 3.0 may not be available to the masses for a couple days yet, but that's not stopping Tapulous (nor Apple's App Store overlords, apparently) from rolling out a new version of its ridiculously popular Tap Tap Revenge that's fully ready to take advantage of push notifications right here and right now. We've taken the new build for a spin, and in brief, it works as designed -- notification times ranged from near instantaneous to just under a minute. One of our editors here was testing on a cellular connection and the other was on a SIM-less iPhone 3G running just WiFi, so it looks like this setup will work pretty seamlessly regardless of what kind of connection you happen to be enjoying / tolerating / loathing at the moment. Follow the break for a quick video demo.[Thanks, Brandon]
Tap Tap to Dave Matthews
Tapulous has released a version of its mega-popular Tap Tap Revenge app geared toward Dave Matthews fans. Dave Matthews Band Revenge (link opens iTunes) costs $4.99US and includes 10 songs from the band, including two from its upcoming album "Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King." Additional features include multi-player mode, a news feed for the Dave Matthews Band, and Facebook Connect for sharing scores.In addition to the regular flavors of Tap Tap Revenge, the Dave Matthews version also joins a dance version of the game, as well as one for Coldplay fans that was released last month.[via Touch Arcade]
iPhone apps stats revealed, games dominate list
With game applications taking up nearly half the list (12 of 25), the rankings for iPhone apps released this week by internet information company comScore may be aimed at advertisers, but tells us a ton about the newest gaming platform. For instance, of the 15 million iPhone users in the US, 32 percent (nearly one in every three) have installed Tap Tap Revenge, making it the most popular application by an ice cold five percent. Furthermore, of the 12 game applications listed, 75 percent of them were developed by small startup companies or, in one case, a single individual. Actually, aside from Pac-Man, Hangman, Sudoku, and a version of Solitaire, all the games are original IP, with number one title Tap Tap Revenge serving as the prime example. We're starting to understand why the iPhone dominated the IGF this year and will likely continue to do so for years to come.
New Tap Tap Revenge slammed with network issues
Tapulous unveiled the latest version of its megapopular iPhone music game franchise, Tap Tap Revenge 2 (link opens iTunes), a few days ago. While it has become the top free app in the App Store, the program is plagued with several issues due its massive popularity. An update posted on the App Store yesterday lets users know that Tapulous is experiencing network problems that are leading to issues with music downloads and online play -- in addition to the app itself crashing. Tapulous has promised a resolution to the network issues as soon as possible, and there should be an update to Tap Tap Revenge 2 over the next few days.Tap Tap Revenge 2 features more than 150 free tracks and three ways to play with friends -- Challenge mode, Two Player Split-Screen and Online Play. You can also progress through Career mode and share your results with that as well. Tap Tap Revenge 2 improves on an already fantastic game, and retains the same free price as the original. However, you may want to wait a couple days for the network problems to be resolved in order to take full advantage of the update. You can check out Tapulous' blog to see the progress on these issues.Thanks to all who submitted this!
