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For months, speculation has swirled among the Scrabulous playing public about the fate of their favorite time waster. The Facebook application, developed by Indian brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, has faced lawsuits and take-down orders from Hasbro Inc., the owner of the old board game Scrabble. Last Thursday Hasbro took decisive action, filing a lawsuit in New York to stop the online game in North America. Now, when avid Scrabulous fans try to access their Facebook games, the application is missing. Scrabulous’ website version of the game still appears to be up and running.

Hasbro is based in Rhode Island, and they own the trademark rights to Scrabble. The Facebook app closely mimics the look and feel of the original board game. Players can place tiles on double and triple word or letter tiles, which are arranged and shaded in the same colors as the classic Hasbro game. Part of the reason the Facebook version is so popular is that users can start games with friends across the country or around the world, taking turns whenever they log on.

Facebook reportedly received a removal order from Hasbro, which cited the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but the social network has not commented on the issue or released a statement about their involvement in Scrabulous’s shut-down. However, the news is not all bad for Scrabulous players who have developed an addiction-like need to play the game. Hasbro and Electronic Arts have developed their own version of Scrabble for Facebook. Though the user base does not come close to that ofScrabulous (500,000 vs. 8000), many former Scrabulous players are looking for alternatives.

One alternative comes from the Agarwalla brothers themselves. They recently rolled out Wordscraper, a build-your-own word game with much the same rules and feel of Scrabulous. A Time magazine article explains the possible loophole that will keep Wordscraper up and running: “Once a user installs the application-which, coincidentally, looks like a big, blank Scrabble board, he can create his own word game by adding special “double word” and “triple letter” tiles in any configuration he chooses. If a user happens to create a board that’s identical to the original Scrabble and saves those settings — a feat that takes less than two minutes — he can elect to save the template and re-use it, over and over again. It’s a free world after all and what you do in the privacy of your online gaming world is private, presumably.” The idea, though more visible, is presumably no more a violation of copyright than a child making a cardboard version of the game for home use.

Some Facebook users have started a “Save Scrabulous” campaign, calling on fans to boycott the EA version of Scrabble and pressure Hasbro to work out a licensing deal with the Agarwalla brothers. However, even avid players are split on the issue of intellectual property rights. One comment on the New York Times’ Bits blog about Scrabulous ‘ legal woes says, “That Hasbro is completely right regarding its intellectual property rights will earn them NOTHING in regards to profits or customers.” Another jokes, “Drat this news! I guess I’ll have to scratch development on the apps I’ve completed for FaceBook: Risko, Monopolous, Unoz, CandyLandy, Battleshin, and Trivial Persook.”

Whether or not Scrabulous will triumphantly return to Facebook is now a matter for the courts. However, those of us who are fans of the application can decide whether or not Hasbro and EA’s version will win our hearts the way Scrabulous did.

Thursday, July 31st, 2008 You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

By Haley January Eckels