EA: Hack took Facebook 'Scrabble' down

The saga continues: Electronic Arts, which handles digital versions of the board game Scrabble for North American parent company Hasbro, has claimed that malicious hackers were responsible for the disappearance of its Facebook application on Tuesday.

The game had crashed on the same day that the creators of Scrabulous, a popular imitation game, blocked access to North American visitors after a legal complaint from Hasbro. With the real Scrabble inaccessible, irritated fans assumed that there was a server problem--the game is in beta, after all--and filled the application's discussion wall with angry comments.

But the real problem, EA has said, is that a hack downed Scrabble. When, according to the Los Angeles Times, the game was still inaccessible at 4 p.m. PT, the company released a statement.

"EA's Scrabble Facebook game experienced a malicious attack this morning, resulting in the disabling of Scrabble on Facebook," the statement read. "We're working with our partners to resolve this issue and have Scrabble back online and ready to play as soon as possible."

It sounds like the old "blame the hackers" excuse, but if you just look at the Scrabble application wall, it's pretty clear that there are a few people who are angry enough at Hasbro and EA to want to sabotage the game.

Whatever the case, the hack was a good one: on Wednesday morning, the game was still inaccessible.

[Lamppost0]

cough*bull$#@!*cough

[ikramerica--2008]

I tend to believe it considering the fanaticism of some Scrabulous players and vitriol they spewed at the rightful copyright and trademark owners for daring to enforce their rights over a copyright infringing trademark squatting counterfeit.

[badasscat]

You can't copyright or trademark gameplay elements. Look it up. You can trademark a name, but that's about all these guys could claim. (In fact, that *was* their only claim AFAIK - that the makers of Scrabulous used the name "Scrabble" in their meta tags to promote the game in search engines.)

I'm so sick of people on this site assuming that just because something is similar to something else means it's copyright infringement. Copyright is a law, and whatever the law says is what it is. And there's nothing in there about copyrighting gameplay concepts. Not in trademark law either.

Ideas and concepts are not copyrightable. Otherwise I could claim to own a copyright on the concept of enforcing copyright, and nobody else would then be able to do so without my permission.

[Penguinisto]

You know? Most astroturfers are at least smart enough to try not to appear as one... you must be new at it.

[Penguinisto]

...maybe it's the new thing: don't cop to incompetence, but instead claim that some uber-elite h4x0r broke into your servers and took 'em down.

Idiots. Any real attack would have specifics: DDoS, PHP compromise, or the like. Instead there's some nebulous "we wuz hacked!" spew, after days of sub-competent (at best) performance.

[singularitydesign]

My question is, should Hasbro have gone after Scrabulous right from the start? It's clear that they waited until their own version was launched on Facebook, but was that a smart move for the brand?

I'm looking for thoughts on the subject at
http://onlinebrandexperts.blogspot.com/2008/07/scrabble-vs-scrabulous-w-r.html

[seth.levy]

What Hasbro SHOULD have done is worked out a deal with Scrabulous. I am sure the game made many people who would never have bought the real thing go out and do so. By taking down Scrabulous in this way, Hasbro has made many enemies who could have been great customers.

[likes2comment]

Pre-take down: Hasbro 15,000 users, Scrabulous 1,500,000 users.

After Scrabulous takedown: Hasbro 15,000 users plus all the Scrabulous users. SERVER MELTDOWN. DUH, OMG, We must have been hacked.

Hasbro clearly does not have the infrastructure of Facebook to support 1,500,000 additional users.

Just my opinion and viewpoint. Remember always blame the hackers if your server goes down.

[M C]

Script kiddies ride again.

[el_goog]

Hasbro doing this does not surprise me at all. When Hasbro acquired rights to a lot of very old video games, they went after people making clones and variations of the games, even though it had been recognized that these old games were considered "abandonware" and had been out of cirulation for many years and the original copyright holders never pursued legal action. Most of the people reworking those old games did so not for profit but for the purpose of keeping interest in those games alive as well as learning from the programming experience so as to develop video game skills that often led to innovation in the field. Hasbro sued these people with a vengeance, intimidating many into settling for thousands of dollars. This generated a reputation for Hasbro in the video game world as a nasty, greedy and ruthless tyrant. The perception if that Hasbro saw a resurgence of interest in old games and they wanted to cash in on the trend.

Ironically, it appears their approach backfired on them and within a few years they got out of the business. If you resent what Hasbro has done, may I suggest people email them and let them know you will boycott their products.

[DrSmartiePants]

With all due respect, the consummer' cannot trust anything that the 'Hasbeen' (EA)company tells us. As they pull the plug on our games with family and friends around the world, they have not in any way proven their case against the developers of Scrabulous. Hasbro did not invent Scrabble. I understand it was invented by Alfred Butts in the 1930s.

The following is a direct quote from US Copyright Office FL-108.
"The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author?s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles."

[K_REY_C]

Perhaps these larger companies, instead of upsetting people who genuinely enjoy a service being provided by another group (albeit illegally) by large/looming legal trouble and shutdown of service could find a way to appreciate the fact that someone else found a legitimately exciting new platform for a relatively old concept of a game and work FOR their customers instead of AGAINST them. Just a thought.

[fordf20]

Hi. I am a hacker. I can get you a password (aol, myspace, facebook, msn/hotmail,yahoo..etc). I do charge a fee for a password. Once i get the password i'll show you proof i have it. Are you interested? please email me at [e-mail]