Disney Acquires iPhone Rockstar Tapulous

Disney announced the acquisition of Palo Alto-based Tapulous, one of the top developer of music games for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. Through a merger agreement, Tapulous is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company reporting into Disney Interactive Media Group (DIMG).

As a part of DIMG’s mobile games group, Tapulous strengthens the company’s portfolio of games and entertainment offerings in the fast-growing mobile arena. Through this deal, Tapulous founders, Bart Decrem and Andrew Lacy, as well as their development team in Palo Alto, CA will be joining DIMG’s mobile content group. Decrem and Lacy, previously CEO and COO of Tapulous, will now take on the leadership roles for the DIMG mobile group with Decrem reporting to DIMG President Steve Wadsworth.

“Mobile gaming is seeing unprecedented growth and this is the right time to invest to strengthen our position in the mobile business,” said Wadsworth. “In a short time, Bart and Andrew have built Tapulous into a successful and accomplished mobile games developer that’s emerged as one of the most successful companies in the industry. We welcome the Tapulous team to the Disney family and look forward to integrating their popular games into Disney’s offerings.”

In the last year, DIMG has enjoyed many successes in its mobile business counting several “platinum” performing apps with more than 1 million downloads including Disney’s Alice in Wonderland Lite, Fairies Fly Lite and JellyCar 2, which is Disney’s most successful premium game in the app store to date. In addition, DIMG creates and delivers unique mobile content and manages a Disney-branded mobile phone service in Japan in association with Softbank.