Yesterday, we wrote about Scrabulous being pulled down from Facebook. The popular game on the social networking site was an online adaptation of the classic offline game. Seems that Hasbro, the company that owns the right to Scrabble in U.S. and Canada, had some problems with Scrabulous. They wanted their own version to be more popular, which, actually was doing pretty bad. Just to avoid some of the legal problems, the game Scrabulous waspulled down from Facebook. But again, it was just to avoid some legal problems. Mashable reports that Scrabulous has returned as Wordscraper.
The original Scrabulous was exactly similar to the board game Scrabble. Copying everything from the colors to the play. Hasbro threatened to sue the Agarwalla brothers, creators of the Scrabulous applications, while they licensed Electronic Arts, the license to create a official version of the game. Now, according to law, copyright only prevents the expression of an idea, and not the idea itself. This is where the Agarwall brothers delivered the blow. They changed a few elements in the gameplay, without compromising on the idea of the game itself.
This allowed them to come up with an application which, although effectively delivering the same experience. What many are wondering is, what didn’t it occur to Hasbro that it could have forged a deal with Scrabulous itself, as it was the most popular version of the game online. Heck, it was the most popular game online. According to the last report, users had already started flocking on to the new game.
What are your views on this? Was it fair for the creators of Scrabulous to come up with an application that was copied from a game owned by some other company? Was it fair for Hasbro to threaten to sue the creators of Scrabulous? And now that we have an alternative version, how will this affect the usage and the equation between the new game, Hasbro and EA ? Let us know.
Hasbro did try.. rumored to be about $10 million.. had written about it yesterday, and referred to this – http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_bigger_questions_behind_the_scrabulous_shutdown.php
I thought Scrabulous was Fabulous it was one of the best online games
i had ever played. It was just a case of sour grapes from Hasbro all the other “Legal” online versions I have been able to play as a South African are totally washed out. The Hasbro on line version of their game is not available to any one outside of the USA and Canada
so all they have managed to do is to close down a game that was actually a huge compliment to them and their game and turnng themselves into a huge insult to the rest of the Scrabble lovers all over the world. Icannot tell you how much I miss Scrabulous.
Congratulations to thed Agarwalla brothers for finding a way to bring it back to us. I love you !!!!