Facebook users lose their Scrabulous
Oh the horror. Users of the social networking site Facebook were greeted with devastating news this morning - the addictive word game, Scrabulous, is gone.
Folks attempting to use the application were greeted with a rather cold and lifeless message:
Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here.
This really isn’t all that surprising, given last week’s news that Hasbro Inc. has sued the makers of the popular game. Hasbro owns the North American rights to the board game Scrabble. It seems the company is arguing that Scrabulous is just a little close to its own game.
Hasbro said in its lawsuit that Scrabulous violates its copyright and trademarks. Separately, Hasbro asked Facebook to block the game. In the year since Facebook began letting outside developers write Web programs that Facebook members can plug into their personal profile pages, Scrabulous has attracted some half-million daily users, despite efforts by Scrabble’s owners to end it.
Hasbro, through video game maker Electronic Arts, has even released its own version of the game for Facebook.
Don’t fret, though. At least for now, you can still play Scrabulous at www.scrabulous.com. You just can’t play it through Facebook.
One has to consider, however, the possibility that the makers Scrabulous might lose this fight in court. The game could be in its final days. How important is Scrabulous to your daily life? Can you get by without it?
Tim has covered a wide range of topics, including tourism, crime, aviation and gambling, since becoming a reporter in 1990. The Oklahoma native joined the Post-Dispatch in 2007 after spending nine years in Orlando. In his spare time, he's often exploring one virtual world or another. He can be reached at tbarker@post-dispatch.com. 
you can play games on Facebook?
Yea you can play games on facebook you can do just about anything lol…
Such a shame how everyone and their dog is so sue-happy over anything and everything nowadays. I mean, Yahoo! games has a similar game called Literati and last time I checked, that was still on there. Ridiculous…
This is a top news story?
Hey Fred, if you developed a multi-million dollar idea or product and someone started cashing in off it…wouldn’t you be a little “sue-happy” too?
daanngg
slow news day?
(no one cares about scrabulous)
As much as I love scrabulous, I’m a bit dismayed to see this story get such coverage, while recent unprovoked attacks at various Metrolink stations go unreported.
I actually went out and bought the deluxe edition of Scrabble for at home play after playing Scrabulous on Facebook a few times. One is not competition for the other. Scrabulous is online. Scrabble is for games with friends at home. I think the popularity of Scrabulous could only be good for the makers of Scrabble.
You can play the real deal for free on msn.games.com
Hasbro/Matell is probably loosing quite a bit og goodwill IMO…
http://tinyurl.com/6yhnxb
Sach said :
They’re losing more than goodwill, Sach.
They’re going to lose money, and lots of it.
In a blind greed-rage they never stopped to think about the fans and the money that those that got hooked on Scrabulous was bringing them. All they could do was bellow beligerently that SOMEONE might have been making a DIME off of SOMETHING that had their name on it.
Now… they’ve cheesed-off about an estimated HALF a MILLION players A DAY. Thousands of whom said that Scrabulous had prompted them to buy Scrabble games and start Scrabble Clubs.
As Bugs Bunny would say “What a bunch of MAROONS”.
Aesop’s fable of the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs is a fantastic fable. A poor couple catch a very lucky break, and come into the possession of a goose that lays golden eggs. For a while they’re exstatic, and life gets a lot better on the money coming in from the golden eggs.
But there comes a point where they become greedy and decide that they just aren’t getting RICH enough FAST ENOUGH. So they decide to gut the goose and get ALL THE MONEY at ONCE!
They of course discover to their horror that the goose is just a goose inside, and that they have killed a beautiful thing.
And so it is with Hasbro and the Scrabulous players. In a gigantic, short-sighted GREED GRUB they’ve succeeded in murdering a fan base of millions and who will certainly think twice before buying ANY Hasbro product from now on.
Publically traded on the NYSE (HAS) - I’d think that anyone who owned any would be off loading it pretty soon - as the management is obviously off the rails and unconnected with the reality of their market base.
Mac
ok so where can we go to play scrabble on line? I play with my sister who lives 300 miles away - and we will both miss our scrabulous itmes
The same game as Scrabulous, by the same developers, is back on Facebook with a new name, and some slight modifications. It’s called Wordscraper now.