If there was any reason for an exchange of bad words in the gaming world, this might be it: Soon, the popular Scrabulous game may have to come off Facebook.

For those few of you who haven’t played or aren’t on Facebook, Scrabulous is a three-year-old knock-off of the popular word game Scrabble. The playing rules are similar, and the game board even resembles Scrabble.

This bothers toy maker Hasbro, which owns the rights to Scrabble in North America and now is suing to have Scrabulous pulled from the social networking website. Hasbro claims Scrabulous violates the company’s rights to publish the game exclusively.

But Hasbro took action only last January, after Scrabulous had been out for a while. Why the delay?

Well, Scrabulous kind of flew under everyone’s radar until late last year when Facebook agreed to add it as an interactive application. Now, about a million Facebook users have it on their personal pages, with half that number using it daily.

And Scrabulous is bracketed by ads, so the game is making money for many more people than just Scrabulous’ creators, brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla.

Legally, Hasbro has a point — you can’t simply copy an idea without getting permission to use it or giving credit to someone for using it. But in Game Guy’s opinion, what really put a knot in the company’s shorts was seeing all that potential marketing and sales revenue wind up in someone else’s pocket. Otherwise, Hasbro probably would have slapped down Scrabulous much earlier.

Hasbro has cobbled a deal with game publisher Electronic Arts for a similar Scrabble application to put in place of Scrabulous on Facebook, as well as other social networks. It would be one of several casual-game applications that Hasbro and Scrabble’s overseas rights holder, Mattel, hope to distribute in greater volume everywhere soon.

Right now, a Scrabble application exists for Facebook users outside the United States, though it’s only in beta form. A debate continues over details on how to its implement the same application this country.

While Hasbro insists it doesn’t want to eradicate Scrabulous, forcing it off Facebook probably would have the same effect. Meanwhile, devoted Scrabulous users have launched a “Save Scrabulous” petition at Facebook that already has thousands of signatures, with many petitioners saying they would boycott Hasbro and Mattel products if the lawsuit succeeds.

So, what do you think? Is Hasbro doing the right thing? Is Scrabulous? Do you believe the petition by fans of Scrabulous has merit even in the face of possible copyright infringement?

Who knows? Maybe the game players will have the last word on this matter.