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.

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Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BJ06020091220?type=te…

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Well, even with rampant piracy, review craziness, and that funky approval process, it's good to hear that someone can still make a...

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Allan

Spamming your crap here really isn't going to help.

December 21 2009 at 6:33 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Eideard

"Good to hear"? I'd be surprised to hear otherwise.

But - then - don't let business realities get in the way of foolishness and whining, too often. It wouldn't sound like TUAW.

December 21 2009 at 5:51 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ned

I think that has more to do with the fact that you have a crappy novelty game that requires no creativity to make. I'm sorry, but I'm tired of the "cash-in" crap apps like this, and that's exactly what it is. A matching game with Christmas tress? Really?

It also looks like you only make comments to advertise your games. Be gone with you, spammer.

December 21 2009 at 3:49 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Ned

extremely doubtful that they're actually bringing home that million a month; they have to pay royalties for all of that music.

and I wish you guys had chosen a better picture for this article. Nothing quite makes me want to throw up like No Doubt's newer music (still love the old stuff. WTF, Gwen, why did you turn into pure suck and bring the whole band down too?)

December 21 2009 at 3:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Jimbo

From one software engineer to a group of others, congratulations!

December 21 2009 at 3:20 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

waiownsyou

Heh. I remember when they were just n00bz on the jailbroken iPhone package "store", releasing Tap Tap for free.... and now they're making millions. It boggles the mind, really.

December 21 2009 at 3:10 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply