hasbro
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Goodbye Scrabulous, Hello "Scrabble by Mattel?"
Scrabulous, the extremely popular but unauthorized Scrabble Facebook app, has been under fire thanks to Hasbro and Mattel, the two companies who own the rights to Scrabble - Hasbro in North America, and Mattel in the rest of the world. The companies threatened to take Scrabulous offline, a move which prompted major public outcry from fans who proceeded to sign online petitions, join groups in support of the game, and even threaten boycotts of the companies' products.
Bogglific Avoids Facebook Deadpool - Reborn as Prolific
At the same time as Hasbro/Mattel's well-publicized take down order of the uber-popular Facebook game Scrabulous (which is based on their Scrabble board game), they were also going after a far smaller app called "Bogglific." Bogglific, an online clone of Hasbro's Boggle game, was at the time played by over 7,000 users per day. A far cry from Scrabulous' 600,000, but certainly significant enough to warrant Hasbro's attention. After receiving the takedown order, Bogglific creator Roger Nesbitt announced his plans to shelve the game. "I'm no lawyer," he wrote. "But I have neither the time nor the money to fight this, and Facebook has given me a grace period of 48 hours to shut the application down voluntarily."
But a week after Bogglific was removed from Facebook, the application is back, sporting a new name, and some basic rule changes.
Hasbro to Facebook: Take Down Scrabulous, Bogglific
I admit an unhealthy addiction to Scrabble. I have been playing almost daily for many years. I think my girlfriend and I own 5 or 6 different versions of the game between the two of us. That's why I was so excited last year when brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla launched Scrabulous on the Facebook platform (they actually created the game in 2006, but it didn't really take off until it was introduced to the Facebook audience). Being rather familiar with the various incarnations of Scrabble online, I am confident in my opinion that Scrabulous is by far the best.
But in the back of my mind I knew it wouldn't last. The name is too close to Hasbro's trademark. The rules, tile distribution, the game board -- all the things that make it superior in every way to Yahoo!'s Literati -- all infringe on Hasbro's copyrights. And so, this past week has not been a very good one in Scrabulous land.
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