Scrabulous Shuts Itself Down On Facebook
from the too-bad dept
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Following Hasbro's decision to finally actually sue over Scrabulous (though, of course, it waited until it had its own competing game first), the guys behind Scrabulous have shut off access to the game on Facebook for users in the US and Canada. Outside of those countries you can still play it -- or you can go directly to the Scrabulous website itself. Or, of course, you can go use Hasbro's version of Scrabble, though, as the report notes, it doesn't seem to be working very well. And, without any competition, Hasbro doesn't have that much incentive to make sure it gets much better.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: intellectual property, lawsuits, promotions, scrabble, scrabulous
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Too many vowels!
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Putting the r in the farcebook
oops! Have I said too much??
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Wow
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Re: Wow
Now, as they have got their own app, I think they are going all the way!
I didnt knew games could be copyrighted! Glad I spent my childhood in a remote country. I wanna go home :(
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Easy Fix
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Re: Easy Fix
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2.4m
Once all the hard work was done for them, Hasbro decided to move in and try to sweep up all those users for themselves and take advantage of someone elses vision and planning.
That was a really classless trash move by Hasbro. I hope no one subscribes to their game.
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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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Hasbro doesn't work outside of US
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Re: Hasbro doesn't work outside of US
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the pessimistic money's on...
Why didn't Hasbro just buy out Scrabulous? They'd have gotten stable code, an existing fan base, and eliminated the competition in one fell swoop! Instead, they have committed themselves to building their product from scratch, err rebuilding since it is just Scrabble with internet added. And they still have to steal away Scrabulous' customers, who aren't pleased about being shafted.
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too bad
Buying out the company was not an option either, because that would have sent the wrong signal to other potential infringers.
A tricky situation that has been a lose-lose one for Hasbro: it has pissed off millions of game lovers, got lots of bad press and worst of all, not enough users are moving to their online version, yet.
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Re: too bad
I agree with most of your points, but I don't buy that argument for a second. If Hasbro had bought out Scrabulous, they would have bought a working, very popular game with a strong community, probably for a discount price with a promise not to sue. Win-win situation for everybody there.
They could have then issued a warning to other developers planning to follow suit that further infringement would not be tolerated, and the legal dogs could be brought down on anyone who did - people would think twice after a couple of high-profile threats. They could then have worked with the Scrabulous developers to create similar apps both for other websites, and for other Hasbro games to try and get the jump on those developers, avoiding the gap in the market that led to the creation of Scrabulous.
Instead, they're annoyed a large community of Scrabble players - many of whom were introduced to the game through Scrabulous to begin with. They've damaged their brand names, lost a huge number of potential customers and stunted further growth. In the process of "protecting their copyright", they've damaged themselves far more than working with the infringing company could ever have done.
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Hasbro blows it...
And a game that's 70 years old now should be in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.
Hasbro, make your Saving Throw!
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Hasbro's goof, by proxy.
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hmm...
The Net is full of talk that apparently Hasbro did try a buyout but the brothers spoilt the show by asking for too much. But I don't know if it is true.
Your argument does makes a lot of business sense. Suing for sure has not earned them any points, because ultimately it's not a wise business decision. Technically they may be in the right, but as I said earlier, it has ended up as a lose-lose-lose situation for them.
Now that I think deeper about it, perhaps the fear of more infringers is unfounded after all. If Hasbro and Scrabulous had indeed joined hands, who in their right mind would think of building something that has to compete with Scrabulous and run the risk of Hasbro's legal eagles?
Thanks for your thoughts.
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This could have been avoided
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If so, you are Hasbro, and Scrabulous was collecting money off your property.
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I'm with those who think Hasbro is shooting themselves in the foot - a toe at a time...
In any case, it appears that many users are simply migrating to the email version of Scrabulous. Not as convenient, but it works - unlike the Hasbro version.
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Dave home
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Re: Easy Fix
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