The saga of Scrabulous is nearing an end. The Facebook version of Scrabble raised the ire of Hasbro and Mattel, which jointly own the rights to the game abroad and in the U.S., respectively. They have already asked Facebook to pull Scrabulous, one of the most popular apps on the social networking site.
So why is Scrabulous still up on Facebook? A flurry of behind the scenes deal-making has been going on between Hasbro, Scrabulous, and Electronic Arts, which has the license in the U.S. to the online version of the game. Hasbro is trying to get Scrabulous to sell itself for a song to Electronic Arts, or else shut down completely by the end of the day today. Scrabulous has been trying to shop itself to other buyers as well, but its legal liability is scaring away any potential white knights. Unless it gets some sort of reprieve or agrees to sell to Electronic Arts, Scrabulous will be no more, despite the more than 46,000 Facebook members who have joined the “Save Scrabulous” group. What choice does it have, really, but to sell?
And it might not end at Scrabulous. One industry source tells me that Hasbro is going after other knock-off games as well, and sending cease-and-desist letters to Facebook along with the infringing app developers, since it is the one hosting the games. So who might be next? Zynga, for one. The Mark Pincus startup that just publicly launched earlier this month—with $10 Million from Union Square Ventures, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Bob Pittman, and others—has games that are based on Risk (Attack!), Boggle (Scramble), and Battleship (Battleship). Zynga claims on its Website to have 1.4 million players of Attack!, 293,000 players of Battleship, and 257,000 players of Scramble. Battleship, Boggle, and Risk are all owned by Hasbro. If Mark Pincus has not already received a cease-and-desist letter, he will soon.
Social networks have been a boon for casual online gaming, because now it is easy to find someone you actually know to play with. But a safer strategy than knocking off traditional board games without licensing them first is to actually create original games. That is the tack the Social Gaming Network (SGN) is taking. It’s popular Facebook games include WarBook and Fight Club. Collectively, its games are generating more than half-a-billion page views a month. There is a business in there somewhere. SGN, which is part of Webs.com, is in the process of spinning off as a separate company. Maybe it should try to license those board games from Hasbro. Somebody should.
Here’s clean & simple reason they shutdown scrabulous.
1. Ran of money. [period]
What else to say or words to type?
I’ve got zero idea coming out. Nothing new.
Same old. Same old. Waiting Techcrunch guys grow old and have gray hair.
Exactly What else to say or words to type?
Where to go? The game below is beyond any infringement of the Scrabble copyright and a more interesting game to boot.
http://www.wildwords.us
Definitely worth a look.
destiny of thieves. they are lucky that they aren’t sued for damage.
#3 (Peter): Shameless self-promotion. Shame. Less.
#5 (sd): Agreed. Treble damages would be the ultimate killer.
If this were Hasbro mis-using open source code, there’d be all sorts of screaming. Why is it different when the shoe is on the other foot?
Frankly, I’m surprised FB hasn’t already toyed with the notion of being ‘contributory infringers’ and the potential liability that would open them to.
the reason it is still on facebook is because Zuck has it on his profile. In his 60 minutes interview a couple weeks ago, he says he has multiple games going on, some with his grandparents.
Scrabulous is one of the only reasons I use Facebook several times a day, if they lose Scrabulous they’ll certainly lose me as a daily visitor, it’s the only App worthwhile..
Facebook should be the one to buy them, as Facebook’s getting real value from it. Tonnes of folk only go to FB daily to play Scrabulous. It’s a fun, useful, social application that you *can* use daily. There aren’t a lot of those out there.
@Jeremy Wright: FB can’t buy them for a song because they’re not the rights owner. They’re no different than the copiers of Scrabulous (I refuse to call them writers or authors).
How long has Scrabble been around? 1915? How long do they get to own the idea? Forever? Do they own the concept, or just the name? Do we have to pay a Boggle tax, a Risk tax, a Scrabble tax, etc., until the end of time? Is this because of “perpetual copyrights,” or something else?
Oh, nooo! I’m about to get my productivity back! The horror!
Peter (#3), I personally don’t mind your selfpromotion (since you don’t attempt to hide who you are), but where is the Facebook version of your game? The reason for Scrabulous’ success is the combination of a good game and the ability to play it with friends and family, and to make new friends. The original scrabulous.com site was only used only by a handful of players. I’m never going to download anything explicitly, especially something that runs only on Windows.
@9 - David
Good call, I’m an idiot.
This is such a shame.
When scrabulous people contacted Hasbro, they didn’t even bother to reply. Now when they have suddenly woken up and feeling the heat, they demand it’s closure or sell out.
How much would the initial license have cost? and how much is it in damages now, if Hasbro intends to claim?
Hasbro is pretty litigious. When I created Babble, they sent me a C&D letter saying that the tiles I used looked too much like Scrabble tiles and that I had to change them. I had to change the font, the letter-number combinations (apparently they think they own a trademark on the letter “J” being worth 8 points), and the number location on the tiles.
Strangely enough, they had no problem with the fact that Babble was essentially Boggle (a game which they also own). Who knows…
hey Hasbro wake up- lets take a look at our “friends” at the RAA - they tried this lawsuit strategy and they are in no better shape for it and no everyone hates them.
Hasbro should pony up a few million for this online game and thank the folks that singlehandedly put them into a hot hot market.
In the face of dizzying profits for online gaming companies, scrabulous is the best thing to happen to Hasbro since Mr. Potato head.
I had to give up on Scrabulous when I discovered that a large chunk (the majority?) of people playing cheat. Unfortunately I don’t think there is really any possible way to enforce the rules when playing in a distributed manner.
my app: http://ubc.facebook.com/apps/a.....2397701323
As far as I understand the IP laws as they pertain to games, the way it works is that Hasbro/Mattel don’t own the idea of Scrabble. What they do have exclusive rights to is the name, as well as the look of it.
So in the example of Pacman, which had some of the most famous IP theft cases, the only one where they successfully persecuted was in the case where the Pacman clone used an exact copy of the ghosts from the game. Other clones, which had completely different art, even if the game play was identical did not suffer.
Seems like the only way that Zynga can be sued is if the look and feel of the game is too close to the Hasbro originals.
Why is Hasbro not cornering the market in on-line social networking games itself? This has somewhat of a stink of the rights-holder having a lack of innovation. I mean, they have the money, are they asleep at the wheel for not being able to predict that their games, which have an obvious social component, would have an appeal to users on social networking websites?
@18 - Axel: Well said.
I hope this serves as a wake-up call to Hasbro to get their acts together and create online versions of their other board games. Who buys their physical board games anyways?
Leave Scrabulous alone…
http://tinyurl.com/yo7trr
Yeah, I agree with Fred above. I’m all for patents and copyrights, but I don’t think they should last this long.
Mickey Mouse, Scrabble, Pac Man. We should be able to put them all together into a bastardization of a game/theme park/cartoon.
The idea is to promote innovation. There comes a time when these laws hinder innovation.
@17 is absolutely correct when he said “As far as I understand the IP laws as they pertain to games, the way it works is that Hasbro/Mattel don’t own the idea of Scrabble. What they do have exclusive rights to is the name, as well as the look of it.”
There is no copyright on the game itself or the rules, just the look and design and the actual rules document.
So, in order for Scrabulous to avoid infringing, they simply have to change the design of their tiles, the value of the points per letter and the layout of the board. It wouldn’t be the end of the world, the current scrabble board pisses me off! And it’s not like real Scrabulous fans are going to be playing Scrabble anymore.
Hey…it’s still up!
Trying to get those last few games completed here. I am SOOO close to the leader board. Please, Hasbro, just give me another 30-45 minutes.
I hope hasbro wins. It is not right to make copies of intellectual property (game rules and looks) and cash in with it. The whole Facebook phenomenon on my opinion is just another shameless attempt at destroying the free nature of internet, and that is why I am no longer a member.
@ Miquel: I buy and play boardgames regularly, because they offer one thing their online versions dont: REAL interaction with my friends, you know speech with facial expressions, emotions, loose talk. And if you mention webcams I’ll smash your face
Anyone play Literati on Yahoo games? It’s been around way before Scrabulous came out. It’s pretty much the same thing as Scrabble, except it looks different. Why doesn’t Hasbro target that too?
Not sure if this is legit, but I just received this from a friend. This guy is apparently starting a new Marketing Co, here in Los Angeles… so you never know.
Title: Scrabulous Bites the Dust (here’s the inside scoop… we think?)
URL: http://brianzafron.com/blog/?p=3
zynga used a backdrop of copyrighted boardgames for their press release. probably not their brightest PR move. that said theyre probably smart enough to walk the legal fine line and negotiate with the game makers at the same time.
Save Scrabulous t-shirts at http://www.cafepress.com/scrabulicious
Check out the Scrabble Cube over at http://www.worldwinner.com.
It can fill that scrabulous-shaped whole in your heart.