Contrary to some eye catching titles, Scrabulous isn’t dead. The game has simply been turned off in the US and Canada, where the legal trouble has been aimed. Likely this has been done to avoid legal entanglements that jeopardizes their relationship with Facebook.
The game has been in hot water since it topped the charts of Facebook’s app directory, although Hasbro was slow to start legal action. It was only after EA launched their own Scrabble game for Facebook that the board gaming company decided to file a DMCA complaint with Facebook.
Here is the official statement from the brothers behind the game:
“Facebook has informed us that they have received a legal notice from Hasbro in reference to the Scrabulous application. In deference to Facebook’s concerns and without prejudice to our legal rights, we have had to restrict our fans in USA and Canada from accessing the Scrabulous application on Facebook until further notice. This is an unfortunate event and not something that we are very pleased about, especially as Mattel has been pursuing the matter in Indian courts for the past few months. We will sincerely hope to bring to our fans brighter news in the days to come.”
Between these legal troubles and F8’s tiering announcements and focus on principles, the platform is certainly becoming serious business.
If you wish to be updated about the status of the application, sign up here.
Update: EA’s Scrabble experienced a malicious attack and was taken down today.
“EA’s Scrabble Facebook game experienced a malicious attack this morning, resulting in the disabling of Scrabble on Facebook. We’re working with our partners to resolve this issue and have Scrabble back online and ready to play as soon as possible.”
Update: The Argarwalla brothers have brought back Scrabulous as Wordscraper.
Tags: developers
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