Facebookers, will you switch from Scrabulous to Scrabble?
The “official” Scrabble is now available on Facebook. Will you switch over from Scrabulous or stay put?
The "official" Scrabble is now available on Facebook. Will you switch over from Scrabulous or stay put?
If you’re one of the nearly half-a-million Facebook users who play Scrabulous on a daily basis, you’re likely aware Hasbro and Mattel have been sending cease and desist letters to the popular social networking site, demanding the removal of this free Scrabble clone.
Last week, however, Hasbro partner Electronic Arts announced it would make its own free – and officially licensed – version of the classic board game available for play on Facebook later this month. The online game is currently playable on EA’s casual gaming portal, Pogo.com.
Available to U.S. and Canadian Facebook users only, Scrabble on Facebook will feature built-in chat, animations and both a real-time mode and a "pause-and-pick-up" mode. EA says Scrabble is the first of its many Hasbro-licensed properties that will be made available through Facebook this year.
But Scrabulous co-creator Jayant Agarwalla suggested to the Associated Press EA would have a tough time gaining "the attention and patronage of a large and dedicated user base," like that of Scrabulous.
What about you? If you’re a Scrabulous player, will you make the switch out of respect for Hasbro/EA’s license?
This article has a mis-print in it. I have tried to access this application on Facebook and it states that only available to pple Outside of the US and Canada. Which is really too bad.
The Facebook application that is currently available is licensed by MAttel, not Hasbro. Mattel owns scrabble in the world outside the US and Canada, where as Hasbro has the license to operate in those two countries. The blog entry is about hasbro bringing their north american version to facebook.
Hasbro does have the rights for Scrabble in the US and Canada, you can check it out on Facebook (if you can get into their Scrabble application).
I really enjoyed Scrabulous, played some games just about every night. It was a shock to discover I no longer had access to my games this evening. Bummer!!! – I was having fun. I did access Scrabble – didn't like it. It's so far behind Scrabulous it's laughable. Then it went down.
Don't you think the folks that worked so hard on Scrabulous should have been treated decently by the 'big guys'. They actually helped make Scrabble popular again – probably more popular that it has ever been. I have decided, as soon as it's up and running, I will cancel Scramble by Hasbro from my Facebook account and hope there will be a way to access Scrabulous again. Maybe Hasbro will 'get smart' and buy out Scrabulous in Canada/US and leave our games alone…in my dreams.
Happy days – Scrabble is removed from my facebook account and I`m playing scrabulous again thanks to some creative and sharing facebookers who started a `group` and posted instructions. YIPPEE!!