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Scrabulous Is Dead, Hasbro's Version Brain-Dead

Posted by timothy on Tue Jul 29, 2008 10:37 AM
from the awesome-job-hasbro dept.
Classic Games (Games) Social Networks The Courts Games
eldavojohn writes "Sometime this morning, Facebook shut down Scrabulous to American and Canadian users. Scrabulous, we hardly knew ye." This is sadly unsurprising, now that Hasbro's finally taken legal action against the developers, after quite a few months of letting it go unmolested. Seems like they waited until there was an official Scrabble client available (also on Facebook), while the snappy and fuller-featured Scrabulous kept people interested in a 60-year-old board game. The official client, which is at least labeled a beta, is a disappointment. This is not a Google-style beta release, note: it's slow to load, confusing, and doesn't even offer the SOWPODS word list as an option, only the Tournament Word List and a list based on the Merriam-Webster dictionary. (Too bad that SOWPODS is the word list used in most of the world's English-speaking countries.) It also took several minutes to open a game, rather than the few seconds (at most) that Scrabulous took — it's pretty impressive, but not in a good way, that the programmers could extract that sort of performance from the combination of Facebook's servers and my dual-core, 2GHz+ laptop. The new Scrabble client has doodads like 3D flipping-tile animations, too, but no clear way to actually initiate the sample game that jamie and I have attempted to start. I hope that once we get past that obvious hurdle, we'll find there's a chat interface and game notebook as in Scrabulous, but my hopes are low.
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[+] Hasbro Sues Makers of Scrabble-Like Scrabulous 395 comments
Dekortage writes "As today's lawsuit indicates, Hasbro has apparently had enough of Scrabulous, the online word game remarkably similar to Scrabble. Filed in New York, Hasbro's suit is against Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, brothers from Kolkata, India, and asks the court to remove the Scrabulous application from Facebook, disable the Scrabulous.com web site, and grant damages and attorneys fees to Hasbro. Why did Hasbro tale so long to 'protect' its intellectual property rights in court? They waited 'in deference to the fans' until EA had launched the official Scrabble Facebook app earlier this month. EA's version has netted fewer than ten thousand players, versus Scrabulous' estimated 2.3 million. This was the next logical step for Hasbro after filing DMCA takedown notices against Scrabulous in January."
Firehose:Scrabulous is Dead by eldavojohn (898314)
[+] Scrabulous Returns To Facebook, As Wordscraper 262 comments
porcupine8 writes "Good news for those that have had a hole in their heart (and Facebook profile) since Hasbro forced Facebook to remove Scrabulous over copyright and trademark issues. The creators of Scrabulous have wasted no time in tweaking the game and have launched a new tile-based game called Wordscraper. In addition to changing the name, they have changed the board look so as not to directly copy the colors, etc of a Scrabble board, and have even made provisions for players to create their own board layout! Interested Scrabulous fans can add the application now. Only time will tell if the changes were extensive enough to keep Hasbro's lawyers at bay."
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  • The developers asked too much money? Hasbro was too stingy? Hope they realize their mistake now and offer a decent price to the brothers who developed scrablous.
    • If the people behind Scrabulous have any pride, they'll tell Hasbro to go fuck themselves. They did a better Scrabble than Scrabble, and rather than compete, Hasbro turned to the law.

      • Hasbro would have done a lot better to do something like this:

        "We'll give you an endorsement and let you use the Scrabble logo and *not take legal action* if you will maintain certain standards and give us a cut of your advertising profits as a licensing fee."

        And then negotiate as fair a deal as both parties can agree upon.

        This is where modern copyright litigation really fails these companies: they're so quick to shut down anyone who might potentially be stepping into their IP, they're passing up really amazing opportunities at making use of their innovation. If these guys can do Scrabble so well, why not encourage them to do other Hasbro games in a way that makes Hasbro money?

        • You're doing it wrong. (Score:5, Funny)

          by Lilith's Heart-shape (1224784) on Tuesday July 29, @11:06AM (#24386887)

          If these guys can do Scrabble so well, why not encourage them to do other Hasbro games in a way that makes Hasbro money?

          Stop making sense.

        • Re:If the Scrabulous people have any pride... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by elrous0 (869638) * on Tuesday July 29, @11:17AM (#24387075)
          Most of Hasbro's board is so old they probably have to have oxygen tents built into the boardroom. It's unlikely that the leadership there even knows how to turn on a computer, much less understands the significance of an argument about how web 2.0 apps are changing the business landscape. We're talking a company that still specializes in *board games*. You'd be about as lucky lecturing a buggy whip company on the potential of the horseless carriage.

        • Re:If the Scrabulous people have any pride... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29, @11:21AM (#24387139)

          This is where modern copyright litigation really fails these companies: they're so quick to shut down anyone who might potentially be stepping into their IP, they're passing up really amazing opportunities at making use of their innovation.

          This has nothing to do with litigation or the law. That's a business decision of shooting themselves in the foot.

          However, in a free country, a business is entitled to shoot themselves in the foot. They can even choose which foot.

    • Not that I back Hasbro, but purchasing the alleged "illegal copy" of their game would have sent the message "Copy our game and do a better job than us, and we will pay you for it rather than prosecuting you"

      • "Copy our game and do a better job than us, and we will pay you for it rather than making asses of ourselves"

        Fixed that for you.

      • Re:Why didn't they just buy scrablous? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PFI_Optix (936301) on Tuesday July 29, @10:51AM (#24386615) Journal

        Why not? Isn't that how most small-time inventors get noticed by big companies...either developing a new product or improving an existing one?

        A couple of college student can't approach Hasbro and say "We've got a great idea for an online version of Scrabble...will you let us make it?" Hasbro will laugh them out the doors. But when they execute it well and have a massive fan base, why would Hasbro NOT want to cash in on what is already there and developed?

      • Not that I back Hasbro, but purchasing the alleged "illegal copy" of their game would have sent the message "Copy our game and do a better job than us, and we will pay you for it rather than prosecuting you"

        And if it ultimately makes Hasbro a shitload of money from the deal what's wrong with that? Another way of putting it would be "Make something profitable and enjoyable from our IP and we'll deal with you so that everybody wins". Hasbro's chosen course of action is either a poor business decision or plain spite.

      • Re:Why didn't they just buy scrablous? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fumblebruschi (831320) on Tuesday July 29, @11:25AM (#24387215)

        Not that I back Hasbro, but purchasing the alleged "illegal copy" of their game would have sent the message "Copy our game and do a better job than us, and we will pay you for it rather than prosecuting you"

        Also known as "Do our R & D for us for free, and we'll give you money if you come up with something really good." That's I message I wouldn't just send, I'd broadcast it at top volume.

    • Re:Why didn't they just buy scrablous? (Score:5, Informative)

      by hansonc (127888) on Tuesday July 29, @11:19AM (#24387119) Homepage

      From what I understand Hasbro did offer to buy scrabulous and the developers wanted "fuck you money" for it rather than taking what they were offered and thanking Hasbro for not suing them for an obvious trademark infringement.

      • Re:Why didn't they just buy scrablous? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by jedidiah (1196) on Tuesday July 29, @10:54AM (#24386677) Homepage

        It's a crossword puzzle!

        It's older than your grandpa.

        There's nothing to "rip off".

        The only thing left that's not public domain is the name.

        This is why there are monopoly knockoffs. Their patent
        on a PD game invented by the Quakers expired a long
        time ago.

        • Re:Why didn't they just buy scrablous? (Score:5, Informative)

          by kithrup (778358) on Tuesday July 29, @11:09AM (#24386925)

          The only thing left that's not public domain is the name.

          And the layout -- in particular, I suspect that the bonus spaces are the most copyrightable aspect. (There was something, a couple of months ago, that discussed the copyrightability, to make up a word, of game rules. But a quick search couldn't find it.)

          While I don't use Facebook, I did see the version of Scrabble up for the iPhone... and at ten dollars, I considered it too much money.

  • As much as I am against IP law (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Jafafa Hots (580169) on Tuesday July 29, @10:42AM (#24386389) Homepage Journal
    if they had just changed the name and maybe the colors, problem solved - they would not have been shut down, and no users would have left.

    The Boggle clone changed its name, and its still up. There have been perfectly legal scrabble clone games published since the 1940s. I have some in my collection of antique toys and games. All you have to do is not use the trademarked name.

  • Facebook is not the Internet (Score:5, Informative)

    by joabj (91819) on Tuesday July 29, @10:44AM (#24386443) Homepage

    The Web-based version [scrabulous.com] of Scrabulous seems to be working just fine.

  • Older than me! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sm62704 (957197) on Tuesday July 29, @10:46AM (#24386511) Journal

    We really REALLY need copyright reform. I'm 56 years old. Nothing ever created in my lifetime will reach the public domain while I still breathe, and no matter how young you are nothing created in your lifetime will reach the public domain either. And as this Scabble thing shows, it stifles creativity. When Newton said "if I see farther than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants" (and he wasn't the first to say that), the same could be said of art.

    Where would engineering be if patents were endless, like copyrights are? Endless copyrights stifle creativity. Where would Disney be without the Brothers Grimm? And how can we convince our governments that they are hindering artistic progress?

    • Re:Older than me! (Score:5, Funny)

      by eln (21727) on Tuesday July 29, @10:50AM (#24386589)

      When Newton said "if I see farther than other men, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants" (and he wasn't the first to say that)

      I totally agree. Someone really should have sued Newton for copyright infringement for that quote.

    • Re:Older than me! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29, @10:52AM (#24386649)
      And yet this has absolutely NOTHING to do with copyright. This is all about TRADEMARK. And no, trademarks were never meant to expire, nor should they. If you want to go on a rant, you should at least have a basic grasp of what you're talking about.

  • So countersue! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Thelasko (1196535) on Tuesday July 29, @10:50AM (#24386599) Journal
    I doubt the creators of Scrabulous had the foresight to patent their invention of "method to play the board game Scrabble using information technology," but if they did, they would have an awesome countersuit. Would the courts rule in favor of trademark or patent?

  • http://games.yahoo.com/lt [yahoo.com]

    (you need a yahoo login)

    totally free. huge regular user base in all skill levels. you get to keep track of your score/ rank over many thousands of games. there are different servers for different skill levels

    its a java app. i've had problems with it freezing on ie (so you lose a match and it hurts your overall standing), but it works fine in firefox. you can play time limit games, challenge spelling games, etc.

    there are some quirks and minor complaints, griping about the dictionary of course being the biggest, as usual, but by and large i'm very satisfied by the player population and the overall challenge and the easy in/ easy out/ waste 20 minutes nature of play

    you frequently encounter players with thousands of games under their belt, and you can check if their win/ loss ratio is suspect or their abandoned games count is suspect (meaning: they jettisoned games in the first few seconds before it hurt their score if they don't like their initial tiles, which is really lame). as for the players with the weird win/loss ratios: i don't understand why someone would cheat at such a frivolous nonmonetary past time, but you encounter such players way more than you would think. i don't get it. is someone designing bots for a CS class? is someone so interested in winning over enjoying themselves? i don't understand it

    of course, it's not 100% scrabble, but how it departs from scrabble, such as pseudorandom letter tiles (chosen at the beginning of the game and fixed but from a much larger pool of tiles) is interesting. so some games are brutal because of a bunch of Cs, Is, and Us, and the next game might be surprising because of a surfeit of Js and Zs

    i'm very happy with literati for wasting 20 minutes here and there

    • Re:How does this matter? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by raju1kabir (251972) on Tuesday July 29, @11:02AM (#24386839) Homepage

      There are still plenty of us who don't really care about myspace / facebook. Not every person on the internet is on one (or both) of those. I don't see why this article justifies front-page status.

      I don't see a single article on the front page that affects everyone.

      Your post strikes me as a lame excuse for trumpeting your awesome coolness for not using Facebook or Myspace. Consider your awesome coolness recognized, now leave us alone to talk about things that affect many thousands of people.

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