Blog Name: The Openend
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Post: Scrabble :: An Adult Game? / Feb,23
Post: Scrabble ::
An Adult Game?
The box says “10 and up”, but today’s Scrabble Word of the Day begs to differ:
This seems a particularly odd choice for a Sunday’s anagrammatical edification, given that the official Scrabble dictionary has been Bowdlerized to the point of excluding even the rather mild FART (try RAFT or FRAT). It is, however, quite in keeping with the “adult-games” label included in Scrabble’s home page URL:
http://www.hasbro.com/games/adult- games/scrabble/home.cfm?page=home.
This would not be the first time the avowedly family-friendly word game has ruffled feathers among the more delicate tile-ticklers.
There was the time horrified parents discovered that virtual opponents in the Nintendo DS version of the game will use, and worse yet define, some rather explicit terminology (Sorry kid, but who among us, man or machine, could possibly resist playing F*CKERS on a triple to go out and win?) .
Then there was the time a Holocaust survivor’s opponent noticed that JEW, as a verb, was present in the official word list, prompting Anti-Defamation League involvement and an eventual lexicographical capitulation.
This well-meaning expurgation was little comfort to one Jewish gentleman, however, when Scrabble legened “GI” Joel Sherman attempted to use the word in team play against the Scrabble-playing robot with a Yiddish name, Maven.
At any rate, this dated Sports Illustrated article plausibly asserts that competitive Scrabble players simply don’t care about defamatory or explicit language. Indeed, if you’ve seen Word Wars, you’ll know that they rely on it, both on the board and off. Warning: the film is unrated and contains profanity, drug use, and the frank discussion of gastro-intestinal difficulty.
I think the gatekeepers of Scrabble wordiness need to be cut some slack. It’s hard enough to be tasked with deciding what is and isn’t a word, let alone what may or may not be offensive.
Instead of deploring the arbitrary nature of the Scrabble lexicon, why not embrace it, as must 2003 Scrabble World Champion Panupol Sujjayakorn, a Thai citizen who doesn’t speak fluent English?
Perhaps, to end the controversy once and for all, the alphabetic tiles need to be replaced with arbitrary symbols and the word list replaced with a randomly generated set of permutations of these symbols, fixed forever in number and arrangement.
Inevitably, however, some of these patterns would bear some superficial resemblance to certain anatomical elements, and we’d be back to square one (the pink one with the star, in the middle of the board, double-word-score).
Finally, for those of you with a strong stomach, have a look at the expurgated word list. Break out one of these gems the next time you’re at the board and strike a blow for lexical liberty for consenting adults, or just enjoy the puerile pleasure of naughty words.
Scrabble An Adult Game?
Blog Name: Andy's Global View
Blog URL: http://amglobal.blogspot.com/
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Blog Summary: Andrew Mack is the founder and Principal of AMGlobal Consulting. A seasoned, innovative professional with over 20 years experience in international business and international development. Andrew has worked in some 70 countries around the world with special emphasis on Emerging Markets in Africa, Latin America and Asia.
This blog has been active since: June,2006
Post: Scrabulous, Scrabble, and Economic Development in South Asia /Friday, 25 April
Scrabulous, Scrabble, and Economic Development in South Asia
In February I made my first visit to the Subcontinent, in Delhi, for the regional meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN. In the main hall there were business and government leaders from around the region. At one of the side events an innovative new registry, dot asia, was launched.
Everything about the event spoke of economic dynamism and to me, of the benefit of an economic system – and longer term economic growth – built on a strong foundation of Intellectual Property (IP) rights. But most entrepreneurs in South Asia and other Emerging Markets (EMs) are still not fundamentally interested in the IP debate. They do see themselves as authors, or artists, or techies, but they don’t see themselves as IP entrepreneurs.
Personally I think this is a tremendous missed opportunity, with long-term implications for economic development.
The rolled eyes phenomenon
Of course if you get into a discussion of IP protection, many people will roll their eyes. Issues of IP are seen in the negative, largely defined by our nearly universal dislike – and this seems to be a global phenomenon – of lawyers. Add to this the general skepticism about the functioning of the courts in South Asia – and most people back away from IP.
However, to my eyes the IP protection debate is not about lawyers at all, but about the very entrepreneurs on whom so much hope is placed. I take as an almost frivolous example the case of the brothers from Calcutta that produced Scrabulous...
The Calcutta brothers who made Scrabulous
Now in the interest of full disclosure, I am a big Scrabble fan. I love playing. I have the computer game on my PC, and I play a lot. I know enough of the two letter words and obscure words beginning with Q that few of my friends will even play with me any more.
So you’d think that something like Scrabulous would have real appeal for me. But I think they should close down the program, and the sooner the better.
There are a number of reasons, of course, starting most obviously with the idea the brothers are hawking, which isn’t theirs to sell. The fact that Scrabulous is for fun and not for profit is irrelevant. It’s no different than piracy of any sort. If I write a book, it’s mine to sell, or license, or give away as I see fit.
Next, you have to consider the Scrabulous phenomenon and ask yourself – is Scrabulous really creating any real value for India? True, in the short term there might be some work for a few lawyers and a PR firm or two. But a few billable hours do not an economic powerhouse make…
Plain fun vs economic value
Compare Scrabulous with the original board game. Scrabble (the idea, using IP protection) has provided value for 50 years. The developers licensed the name to Hasbro, and again to Mattel. Money made, taxes paid, employment provided—the seeds of economic growth. From there the game spread around the world, long before the existence of the Internet. Again, people were hired in manufacturing and promotion in different countries. The game entered into the world’s consciousness. It was a good idea, made possible in part because of IP protection.
Scrabulous, on the other hand, will likely be gone within the year. Not much economic value there for India or the world.
There are many in Emerging Markets that get caught up in arguments around the high cost of IP. And its true, some IP – whether music, or film, or software, or whatever – can be costly. However, if we are really focused on building long-term opportunity in Emerging Markets, a short-term focus on the cost of IP misses the point.
I often hear that Bill Gates or Madonna (or in the case of Scrabulous, Hasbro) won't miss a few rupees if their IP is pirated. Maybe so. However, there is something much larger at stake. Emerging Markets entrepreneurs and government officials talk frequently about their desire to promote investment and growth and protect their own IP and CP (cultural property). They decry the lack of available finance for growth, and complain that they don’t get the best and latest goods and products.
From value to development
South Asia, as well as other Emerging Markets, can't seek to create an environment that will promote rapid, information-based, high-skill economic growth while tolerating loose IP standards. Experience shows that you simply can't have it both ways.
Why? They simply won’t attract as much investment in the long term. They won’t have the same ability to retain good talent. They won’t be able to build wealth. They won’t build competitiveness. And they won’t be able to and create alliances with companies that can give them access to global markets.
So, Emerging Markets need to recognize the role that IP protection can play in economic development, from creating employment, to strengthening the middle class, to ensuring economic independence and cultural preservation.
Requisite for the next IP entrepreneur
South Asians need to demand the kind of business environment that will help them thrive, and the improvements to the courts that will help them protect and leverage their country’s good ideas. In the words of Sourabh Gupta, a Washington, DC-based Indian trade and development analyst, they need to build “a body of case law that is pro-innovation and pro-IP protection to help underpin their aspirations of upward mobility.”
It’s not about today’s Bill Gates. It’s about tomorrow’s Bill Gates, the one who might come from India or Bangladesh or any other Emerging Market.
And as Gupta says, the opportunity “will only be as strong as the energies invested by those most materially affected – the vast multitude of small entrepreneurs.”
In the end, if we are truly serious about what we claim to want so badly – investment, jobs, to be taken seriously on the world economic stage, to become economic drivers, not just followers – then we need IP protection.
Because unlike Scrabble, economic development is no game.
Blog Name: Angry African
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Location: South Africa
Blog Summary: Angry African on the Loose
This blog has been active since: December 2007
Post: Make It Better: Scrabulous - Can someone shoot the lawyers please / March 2, 2008
Make It Better: Scrabulous - Can someone shoot the lawyers please
I have to confess that I went through a phase of addiction. To Scrabulous on Facebook. I played it with my friends in Australia, and with my wife sitting across me in the lounge. I now have it under control. I only have about 2 games going at the same time and only play at night. Now it seems as if this will be taken away.
By Mattel and Hasbro - the owners of Scrabble. And, surprise, surprise, the fight is being led by the corporate lawyers.
I am not surprised that the lawyers are heading this up. They’ll take any case if they can smell that they might win. I guess it comes from losing so often. And corporate lawyers are especially pathetic. Couldn’t make it in the courtroom or on their own. So decided to be the ‘fact-checker’ that cross the t’s and dot the i’s. Boy, do I have a special dislike for them.
They have been at the heart of almost every failure that I have worked on. Mind you, not failure because of our work or advice. But failure because they didn’t agree with our way or our advice. Let me give you a classic example.
I worked with a large company that was the target of a major trademark campaign by activists and an African government. Our advice? Just agree to sign the agreement they want you to sign. Yes, you might have a legal case, but most of these cases have nothing to do with whether you are legally right or wrong.
Being legally right does not equal morally right. Legal justice does not mean doing what is just. The campaigners will just argue that the system is in favor of ‘Big Business’ and that the little guys always get the short end of the stick. It’s a ‘no win’ for the company.
And, most importantly, you can’t win a popularity contest with a respectable campaigning non-profit or an African country. Everyone got this, except the lawyers. They argued that it could set a precedent. That it might (yes might) hurt the company - they were wrong. So the company continued to fight the legal case.
And we continued to argue that they need to just sign the bloody agreement - their well earned reputation was getting hammered. We eventually told them that they WILL sign an agreement. Not because we say so, but that was just the way it works out in the end in these campaigns - hey, I headed up a few campaigns while at Oxfam.
It dragged out for more than a year. The company got hammered. Their reputation was shot. The end result? They agreed to sign the agreement…
I continue to fight the corporate lawyers at every turn. We argue - just be transparent and tell people everything. The lawyers? No, can’t do that - too risky. (I bet you that the tobacco industry got the same advice from their lawyers from day one). We argue - sign an agreement with the local community that you will respect their rights.
The lawyers? No, can’t do that - too risky. We argue - be open at the board level about pay. The lawyers? No, can’t do that - too risky. At every turn we bump into them. This roadblock stopping all progress. And the end result? The lawyers are wrong, the company’s reputation is damaged, and we look like asses for being right.
Why could the lawyers not be told to shut the hell up and let the ‘money makers’ in the company run things. I have had two CEO’s tell the lawyers to stop telling him what he can’t do and rather help him make things possible. Instead of stopping things from happening, make sure that every legal angle is covered to make things happen. Be part of progress, don’t stop it. And in both cases the company benefited from the result. Better relations, more respected brands, and innovative changes.
What should Hasbro and Mattel have done? Tell the lawyers to shut the hell up. And ask the marketing people to speak to the developers about getting their name attached to Scrabulous. Imagine - 500,000 free hits every single day.
Free advertising on one of the most popular social networks available. Instead? 500,000 potential campaigners against Hasbro and Mattel. Instead of free advertising and potential clients? Free dislike and loss of clients. I for one won’t be replacing my Scrabble game soon. And won’t buy the game for my friends as I was planning on doing. And I blame the corporate lawyers for that.
Can someone just shoot the corporate lawyers so we can start making some money and enjoy a better life.
Scrabble, Controlling Authority
Blog Name: Controlling Authority
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Post: Scrabble / March 2, 2008
Scrabble
Hasbro and Mattel claim that on-line Scrabble is piracy. I guess a lot of people are playing it on Facebook where it is called Scrabulous but the rules and points are exactly the same. As many of you know, I play at www.isc.ro, I just checked my stats and I have played 1,641 games over about 4 years.
Both the sites are hosted on servers outside the U.S. Scrabulous in India and ISC in Romania. This makes it more difficult/impossible for Hasbro and Mattel to shut them down.
NoObamaKoolAid is going to love my suggestion to the companies: get the domain scrabble.com and start making money. Make the site really fun and easy to use. Let people play free if they are willing to look at ads but allow them to buy a membership that would allow them to play without being bothered by ads.
Give one player name free and let them buy more if they want. In short, build a better website where people can play scrabble and people will come. Why don’t they even try?
I am confident about my site in Romania staying up, but they could force the hand of facebook pretty easily. Or, license it to facebook for a fee. Facebook is making plenty of dough. I’m just saying people want to play scrabble, isn’t that good for the company? They just have to figure out how to get them to play on their website versus others.
Scrabble goes Web 2.0
Blog Name: RHetoric
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Blog Summary: Welcome to RHetoric, the blog of RH Strategic. We are a communications firm that offers a powerful combination of strategy & planning, marketing, public relations, and design services. In this blog our team discusses the influence of communication in our lives and specifically within technology, healthcare, and the public sector.
This blog has been active since: Nov, 2007
Post: Scrabble goes Web 2.0—Sort of / 18.02.2008
Scrabble goes Web 2.0—Sort of
I have a new obsession: Scrabulous. This free online game of Scrabble is entirely addictive (so beware), and the digitalization offers some key benefits that are nearly enough to turn a card-carrying board game lover away permanently.
Just imagine, a world in which you don’t have to keep up that annoying tally of the score or multiply for your triple-word scores-Scrabulous keeps a running total for you. And there is always a rogue Scrabble player who tries to play a questionable word (”Regioned,” the supposed past-tense of dividing an area into “regions” was one of my past attempts). Scrabulous nips those quasi-words in the bud with a pop-up “invalid word.”
Of course, if you are going to play Scrabulous, you better act quickly. Hasbro, the maker of the board game Scrabble, has sent the Scrabulous inventors a “cease and desist” order for copyright infringement. But Scrabulous has earned a bevy of supporters-more than 610,000 on Facebook alone; and “Save Scrabulous” groups are popping up all over the place. There is even a highly amusing satirical version of Fergie’s “Glamorous” in support of the game on YouTube.
No matter what happens to Scrabulous, this raises an important issue for Hasbro-why didn’t they think of this? This free, digital version of Scrabble is raking in a younger audience of players, and reviving those, like me, who enjoy conjuring up memories of the board game version but love the perks of online play. The Scrabulous inventors, India-based brothers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, are now earning $25,000 a month from advertisers, a number that could easily increase with the popularity of the game.
Perhaps Hasbro would be best served to reach an agreement with the Agarwallas, since $19.95 for Hasbro’s online Scrabble Blast is just too much to pay when it’s available for free. Hasbro may just find it is better off getting on board with the freeware system, before users get off-board with Scrabble altogether.
Blog Name: Elite Choice
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Post: Swarovski Encrusted Scrabble Board for $20,000 / 18 Feb 2008
Swarovski Encrusted Scrabble Board for $20,000
Featured above is an exclusive glass Scrabble board coated with around 30,000 Swarovski crystals exhibited at the American International Toy Fair in New York.
Designed by Hasbro, the board marks the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the game. Priced at $20,000, the game is anticipated to be auctioned coming summer with all the proceedings donated to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.
Via ABCNews
Blog Name: Monochrome
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Blog Summary: The personal musings of Byron Case
As of January 25, 2008, the maintainer of this blog has obtained permission in writing from the State of Missouri Department of Corrections' headquarters in Jefferson City to publicly post the personal musings of Byron Case.
This blog has been active since: August, 2007
Post: Bare Necessities / February 16, 2008
Bare Necessities
The prison canteen doesn't sell SCRABBLE sets, so we made our own. Tiles, stenciled and meticulously cut, came from the backing of a forty-two-cent writing tablet. A grid, drawn on a legal-size file folder, glued to the reverse of a checkers board and shaded with colored pencils became a passable simulacrum of Hasbro's. The process took days – me lettering and coloring, my cellmate, Jay, gluing and cutting. The thought crossed our minds, but we stopped short of coating the tiles with floor wax to make them smoother and appealingly shiny.
We got a copy of The Official SCRABBLE Players' Dictionary, Third Edition to settle challenges. The Official Word List, that SCRABBLE aficionado's bible, was beyond our ability to acquire, owing to the prison's restrictive mail policies. We made lists for ourselves of every playable two-, three-, and four-letter word. We did drills. We anagrammed relentlessly, often unconsciously. We read about fanatical tournament players in the compelling Stefan Fastis book, Word Freak, and were less mortified than we should have been to identify so much with its insane subjects. We were, it's safe to say, obsessed.
For two years a nonsmoker, I started again. Locked down in a nine-by-twelve space for twenty-one hours a day, wits and creativity will take you only so far before options seem to run dry, before vice starts looking like a virtue. Besides that, our two-man marathon tournaments demanded we have something to do with our hands as we played into the gray hours of dawn. Filterless, hand-rolled cigarettes of cheap tobacco stained our fingers. Freeze-dried coffee bittered our palates. Once in a while we would venture to ingest solids, too, usually in the form of breakfast—served here at five-thirty in the morning.
Even with the best books and a voracious appetite for literature, one can only read so many hours a day. SCRABBLE left us with none of the numb-headed guilt of watching television; though, most nights our TVs stayed on, muted. They were for visual stimulus while formatting plays and, aside from occasionally distracting us with the antics of an impossibly adorable kitten on The Planet's Funniest Animals, they served well for that purpose. For aural input we had our many eclectic mix tapes, recorded with care from a fantastic nearby independent radio station.
We became word-crunching, chain-smoking, over-caffeinated, kitten-loving machines.
As involved as we were, it feels like a personal failing that I'm not unable to cite specific plays. Neither can I retrieve from memory exact scores. True SCRABBLE enthusiasts remember these things as second nature. Jay did once challenge a Bingo (a single play that uses all seven of a player's tiles) of mine that involved putting an S at the end of his BLOODLETTING and crossed a Triple Word Score premium square. Why that single instance stands out in my mind has more to with his disgusted reaction to losing the challenge (and his next turn) than with any cleverness of the play itself.
Jay went home, in December of 2003, on probation. We've kept in touch. To this day he is still the best cellmate I've had. After him came a string of individuals I'll charitably describe as less-than literate. There was simply no one able or willing to play. My handmade SCRABBLE set was retired. I quit smoking almost immediately. For nearly two years, through institution-wide shakedowns and monthly cell searches alike, it sat at the bottom of my footlocker despite its contraband status as an altered item. In the end, I gave the entire bundle—board, tiles, book, everything—to old Mr. B, with whom I'd played many games in the county jail, the two of us awaiting trial. I knew he would get more enjoyment from it at that point than I. And, sure enough, the following day he let me know how funny it had been to look over the old score sheets I'd left in the box, and to see the plastic bag of checkers still sealed from the factory.
That was the spring of 2006—two years ago, now. Too many times to have kept track, I've seen Mr. B since then. Somehow, it's never occurred to me to ask him if he still has the board, or if he's played any particularly good games on it. I'd like to think, after all, that it helped someone other than Jay and myself pass the time, even if it was with decidedly less fanaticism.
Blog Name: 360Sync.com
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This blog has been active since:2006
Post: Monopoly and Scrabble To XBLA? / Feb, 11
Monopoly and Scrabble To XBLA?
Before today’s press release, I had evidence that Monopoly and Scrabble was possibly coming to Xbox Live Arcade. However, we were asked to not post anything, so we waited for EA to make the first move. This morning, they did…
We got a press release which detailed EA’s plans to release many Hasbro games to Pogo.com and the Nintendo Wii… yet no news about Xbox Live Arcade. After reading it all over though, we found this very important sentence…
EA also is developing new Monopoly and Scrabble ®(in North America) titles for multiple platforms, as well as other titles that will be announced later this year.
Does this mean that Xbox Live Arcade will be getting Monopoly and Scrabble by the end of the year? We believe so, but again, consider this a rumor for now since we don’t have any hard evidence that we can show… just yet.
Blog Name: Order from Chaos
Blog URL: http://braveastronaut.blogspot.com/
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Blog Summary: An opportunity to comment on a life very full, with room for improvement, and little time to do it.
This blog has been active since: September, 2006
Post: QWERTY is a valid Scrabble Word / February 07, 2008
QWERTY is a valid Scrabble Word
I have previously mentioned my "addiction" to Scrabble and it's new Facebook knock-off, Scrabulous, which is in danger of being killed by Facebook, as it evidently might be an infringement of Hasbro's rights. But I digress. Qwerty refers to the common computer keyboard. Look up there in the left hand corner.
Further, your keyboard may have dots or raised lines on the "F" and the "J" keys. They are part of the home keys (A-S-D-F for the left hand, J-K-L-; for the right hand). I took typing in both junior high school and high school. I was miserable as I had already learned to type myself.
For the longest time, I used to have to look at the keyboard to make sure I was pushing the right keys. Now, I can pretty much look at the screen to see if things are correct. The backspace and the delete keys are still very much used in my world. Computers have made that so much easier.
So what's my point? I could go on about how secretaries are becoming less utile and more of a status symbol for executives as "typing" becomes easier and there are fewer occasions when someone needs to be asked to "take a memo."
Or I could argue that the art of hand writing is rapidly becoming a lost art, but that is a blog post for a different day, as I could go on about that for some time. I really just wanted to show off this site I found, again courtesy of one of my most favorite sites on the web, kottke.org. T
he site has let me know that I can type between 35-45 words per minute. It tracks errors and tells you how fast you type. It's kinda cool.
Blog Name: ...on pampers, programming & pitching manure
Blog URL: http://www.kimpallister.com/
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Location: Bellevue : Washington : United States
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Post: The Scrabulous Solution: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg / 20.01.2008
The Scrabulous Solution: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg
Dear Mark,
Following last week’s announcement by Hasbro (and later Mattel, who have the Euro rights) that they were pursuing legal action against two developers in India that made Scrabulous, the Internet has been abuzz with the collective worry that 600k people may lose their beloved Facebook pastime.
It would be a shame for all those involved if Scrabulous were to go away. With over six hundred thousand people registered, Scrabulous is one of Facebook’s most popular applications. The outcome of the situation will affect the satisfaction of Facebook’s customers. It will have impact on perception of Facebook as a viable development platform, and on Facebook’s relationship with its developers (indifferent beneficiary, or protective and nurturing parent?). Facebook’s actions here will also send a message to owners of consumer brands and IP owners about Facebook’s respect for their concerns, and many of these companies could well be future advertisers or partners.
Facebook’s actions here will also be highly visible. The Hasbro threat to the makers of scrabulous was widely written about and even covered on national television.
In my eyes there seem to be three courses of action for Facebook, only two of which are viable, and only one of which is a good idea.
The possible courses of actions are as follows:
1. Step in and help the developers in their legal fight against Hasbro. I believe this to be the non-viable path, or at best sub-optimal. They are quite clearly violating Hasbro’s IP at multiple levels, from look and feel to game rule set, to even the questionable porte-manteau naming. Even if you helped Scrabulous win, this course of action would be bad publicity and costly.
2. Do Nothing. This is a perfectly viable course of action. After all, Hasbro’s not suing Facebook, but rather the devs. However, what’s at stake is bad publicity, the possible loss of one of your most popular third party applications, and with it, the loss of a significant amount of customer engagement.
3. Broker a winning solution for all parties. I believe this is feasible, and is the best course of action. Everyone wins, it’s not significantly expensive, and the possible upside is significant.
So what does this winning solution look like? I’ll first lay out the steps involved, and then the benefits for each party.
First, Facebook acquires Scrabulous. That could mean acquiring the developers in which case you get a couple smart engineers to help implement the steps below, but at minimum, you buy the Scrabulous codebase, the servers running the service today, and the player database.
Secondly, broker a deal with Hasbro (& Mattel) where:
* Scrabulous will be updated in two phases: (1) rebranding it as “Scrabble” or “Scrabble For Facebook” immediately, and (2) at a later date a “Scrabble Pro” will be added as a premium subscription service (more on this later in this post).
* Hasbro, with Facebook’s help, develops “Scrabble Pro” as part of the exercise of getting familiar with the Scrabulous codebase, server administration, etc.
* Hasbro takes possession of the codebase and manages the servers, following the launch of the Pro version of the game. At this point, Facebook is hands-off.
* The subscription business (say a 5% uptake out of what by then may be a 1M userbase, at say $25/yr, would make this a $1.25M/yr business at minimum) goes to Hasbro. Optionally, Facebook could have some recoupable amount out of this to recoup engineering costs in helping with the transfer of code and the interim running of the service, but this seems like a nit.
What is the ‘pro’ version of Scrabble and why would users choose to pay the subscription fee? Hasbro would have a better idea what would resonate with their players, but here are some ideas:
* Richer stats tracking (how many bingos and with whom? Pie charts of wins/losses. Avg score per game, etc.
* Scrabble variants (alternative dictionaries, Clabbers, speed-scrabble, etc)
* Better chat functionality
* Tournament private tables/lobbies
* Leaderboards
* Etc
OK, so why is this final scenario on which I’ve elaborated the “win-win-win-win” solution? Let’s recap:
* The developers of Scrabulous get to cash out and/or get employed by Facebook, and are no longer threatened with Hasbro legal action.
* Hasbro acquires one of Facebook’s most successful apps, has a head start on creating a successful subscription games service within Facebook, and acquires a community of 600,000 users.
* Facebook gets Hasbro as a partner, keeps its customers happy, doesn’t lose one of its top apps, and gets a proof point for a business model that other developers and IP holders may choose to follow. The corporate image avoids egg on the face and is seen as helping out the little guy.
* Scrabulous players don’t lose their beloved game, and have a chance to add new features and variants by upgrading.
What’s to lose?
Regards,
Kim “Scrabulous Fan” Pallister
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Post: The Owners of Scrabble Are None Too Happy With The Success of Facebook's Scrabulous / 16.01.2008
The Owners of Scrabble Are None Too Happy With The Success of Facebook's Scrabulous
With 260,000 players on weekdays and about double that number on weekends, the Facebook version of Scrabble--called Scrabulous, is a huge success. Unfortunately, Scrabble's owners, Hasbro and Mattel aren't seeing a dime of it.
In legal circles that's called copyright infringement.
The application was developed in Calcutta, India, by software developers Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla and launched at the end of June. They have a website version, as well as a Facebook portal. The Facebook portal allows users of the social networking site to play with their friends and others in the network.
The software developers say they placed their version of Scrabble on Facebook after approaching Hasbro (which owns the rights to the game in the US and Canada) and received no response.
Isn't that kind of like knocking on the door of a house, and, if the owners don't answer you walk in and make yourself at home?
According to Brand Republic, initially the pair said that they were targeting just a few thousand users, but within weeks the Scrabulous application had 20,000 users and was growing fast and making the pair around $20,000 a month.
The folks at Mashable explain the game this way:
For anyone that loves to play Scrabble, this application lets you do it your way. There are options to play with other users that aren’t even online. This way, you can let your Scrabble game go on forever. Well, maybe not forever, but at least you can play when you want to play.
Once you’ve added Scrabulous, you can choose to host a game, start a game with a friend, see who’s online now, find a friend that’s currently playing, or join a table.
Now Hasbro has responded jointly with Mattel, which owns the rights to the board game internationally, and asked the applications be pulled.
The addictive quality of the game is explained by the folks at LifeClever:
"I have a confession. The reason why you’ve heard barely a peep from me isn't because I’ve been Tasered by zealous cops or abducted by aliens. Truth is, I've been fiendishly playing Scrabble Scrabulous on Facebook. I swear, it's like a Krispy Kreme donut with sprinkles of crack on top.
"After its integration with Facebook, Scrabulous is now delightful, convenient, and sticky. It's a great example of how to take a classic standalone product and turn it into an online service that connects emotionally and deeply with people.
Is Scrabulous boosting Scrabble?
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Post: Is Scrabulous boosting Scrabble? / 15.01.2008
Is Scrabulous boosting Scrabble?
As has been noted on TechCrunch and other places, Hasbro is working to shutdown Scrabulous, one of the most popular Facebook applications. While Scrabulous is certainly a Scrabble clone, the former is likely giving a significant boost to the latter.
Looking at Google Trends, one can see a significant recent uptick in search activity for Scrabble which occurs concurrently with the appearance of Scrabulous.
Scrabulous appears to be greatly boosting Scrabble itself, as there is no other news which could explain this uptick. Hasbro is therefore incredibly stupid to try and shut it down.
As means of disclaimer, I am an unapologetic Scrabulous fan (addict?). It has been years since I’ve played any Scrabble, and if Hasbro makes Scrabulous go away, I am much less likely to purchase a Scrabble board.
I don’t say that as a threat, but because Scrabulous certainly has enhanced awareness of Scrabble to me. If Scrabulous goes away, then that awareness will go away. I’m certain this is true for many, many others (to put it mildly).
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Post: Hasbro Tries To Shut Down Scrabulous / 11.01.2008
Hasbro Tries To Shut Down Scrabulous
“Is Hasbro just a stupid Potato Head? Or is this a brilliant game of Stratego?” That’s the big question Fortune’s Josh Quittner (my former boss) asks as he reports that Hasbro, the toy company that owns Scrabble, is trying to shut down Scrabulous,
one of the most popular Facebook apps.
Scrabulous lets you play an online version of Scrabble with your Facebook friends. The app boasts 569,000 daily active user, ranking it No. 9 right after Slide’s SuperPoke, No. 8, and ahead of iLike, No. 10.
Scrabulous co-founder Jayant Agarwalla, 21, confirms that Hasbro “sent a notice to Facebook about two weeks ago. The lawyers are working on it.”
Quittner suggests that someone start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous, but we all know how much good that is likely to do.
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