'Scrabble' app on Facebook crashes in wake of 'Scrabulous' takedown

When Scrabulous, a popular game on Facebook's developer platform, was shut down earlier on Tuesday because of copyright infringement issues with the manufacturer of the Scrabble board game, word game fans weren't totally left in the dark. After all, Electronic Arts (which handles the digital rights to Scrabble for the game's parent company, Hasbro) had recently created an official beta version of Scrabble for the platform.

Problem is, the servers that were hosting the "real" Scrabble app couldn't handle the load of new migrants, and the application crashed on Tuesday afternoon. Oops!

"We'll be back up shortly," an apologetic error message read. "We're working on some tech problems and Scrabble will be ready to play as soon as possible!" The game is slated to exit the beta phase in the middle of next month, and some (my colleague Rafe Needleman among them) initially found it to be a better-quality game experience than Scrabulous had been.

But in the wake of a server crash, Facebook users weren't too pleased, as the message wall for the Scrabble application revealed. "Wow, does this suck," one Facebook user wrote. "Why can't you guys work out a licensing deal with the Scrabulous boys? Now we're back to square one and have to go through all of your debugging process."

Well, to be fair, rumor has it that Hasbro put out an acquisition offer for Scrabulous, only to have it rebuffed because its creators thought the amount offered was insufficient.

"Sucks, sucks, sucks," another Facebook user said. "Locks up at 30 percent loading. Sucks. Oh, did I mention it sucks? Get a grip, Hasbro."

Too bad "FAIL" will net you only seven points.

[mikeburek]

The Scrabulous people wanting way more money seems pretty lame. They could have been sued, but were given a chance to become legit and still make some money.

Hope the real Scrabble gets backs up soon.

[unknown unknown]

Keep in mind Hasbro's offering to buy them is only a rumor.

[Penguinisto]

...and the "offer" could've been some drop-stupid tiny sum that wouldn't have even covered the costs.

[ikramerica--2008]

Caroline, just to be clear, it's copyright and trademark infringement both. And the trademark is more valuable than the copyright here. If only those two brothers hadn't named it Scrabulous, they might have been in better shape. I say to all those facebook people playing a free game and getting mad when they can't play it anymore? get over it. Life will go on, go find another way to waste your day. Scrabulous was a poorly written application and devalued the Scrabble brand. By turning down the offer to sell it, the brothers are quite silly. When someone offers to pay you for something you don't own in the first place, you don't haggle about the price. ;)

[King-of-Chatalot]

If your colleague Rafe Needleman thinks the EA version of Scrabble is better then Scrabulous, he must be a complete moron.........which says even less about you.......

[firepad]

Hasbro consists of a bunch of lawyers systematically strip-mining hoary franchises like Scrabble. So Scrablulous was completely out of their league on the IP front.

On the other hand, lawyers don't write very good code. It really is a shame the two parties didn't try harder to compromise.

But from the beginning, Scrabulous had no hand to play. No matter what seems "fair," under current US law they were simply thieves. So from a practical perspective, they were lucky to have been offered anything at all, and silly to have turned it down.

[QuetzalcoatlUSA]

"Scrabulous was a poorly written application?"

Apparently never played Scrabulous or read the article about the crash. Just a troll for Hasbro. Who knew anyone there actually knew how to use a computer.

[Penguinisto]

Guess the amount "offered" was insufficient, wasn't it?

/P

[unknown unknown]

Game mechanics are not protected. So some changes to the name and broad design and Scrabulous can be back in business if they want.

Hasbro's offer to buy them out is only a rumor at this point, as the article says.

[sanenazok]

Of course, if the Indians had made something of their own they would own it. Copying someone's game is OK in Hyderabad but not everywhere.

[unknown unknown]

@sanenazok, technically speaking it's not even ok in Hyderabad since India is member of WIPO. Though Hasbro couldn't stop it in India, since they only own the rights to scrabble in the U.S and Canada.

[janke8]

Hmmmm. I played yesterday...into the early evening...the computer beat me everytime...and I just once wanted to win...I had a great time with the competition...Thanks for a great afternoon of a wonderful game...It was fun!! Hope it returns!!

[sanenazok]

The Indians needed Hasbro's name and appearance to attract players to the game. If they had actually been creative and made their own game they would be competing against hundreds of other word games out there. Instead of making something themselves they ripped off the name and appearance of Hasbro's game. Big surprise, they got sued. I don't expect Hasbro made any significant offer to them. It's just too easy to make an online board game and not have to wheel and deal with these guys. After the lawsuit Hasbro will take whatever profits these guys made so there's no reason to offer them anything more than a few thousand (if that). I'm sure they were asking for hundreds of thousands based on the traffic to the game. They'll serve as a nice deterrent.