Facebook blocks Scrabulous worldwide
In a not-entirely-unexpected development of the story of the grim fate of Scrabulous, Facebook have blocked the Scrabble-clone application in every country except India. Mattel, who own the rights to Scrabble outside of North America, formally demanded the block due to copyright concerns.
The developers of Scrabulous removed the game voluntarily from North America three weeks ago after Hasbro filed a lawsuit against them in New York, but the developers live in India, where a lawsuit is still pending, so the game remains playable there. Interestingly the block across the rest of the world was implemented by Facebook, not the developers, which suggests that Facebook may be under legal pressure themselves with regards to this application.
In the meantime, if you’re missing your Scrabulous fix, then we recommend you give Wordscraper a try. Wordscraper uses circular tiles, rather than the square ones from the original game. It’s not as pretty, but the mechanic is still pretty much the same.
I just continue to pray that older companies begin to realize that the internet isn’t the enemy. Scrabulous was doing nothing but building the profile of Scrabble, and updating it for the 21st century. In taking down the enormously popular application, Mattel and Hasbro have just earned themselves hatred from their customers. Why not buy it, fund further development, and then monitize it? That way everyone would have been happy.
Scrabulous (via Mercury News)
Related posts: Scrabble vs. Scrabulous – the legal showdown begins | Scrabulous removed from Facebook in North America, internet retaliates
