Scrabble Makers to Nix Scrabulous?

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A sizeable storm's brewing over "Scrabulous", a virtual (and real) rip-off of the original board game, 'Scrabble'; with the companies who own the rights to 'Scrabble', Hasbro and Mattel, now threatening to shut down the online game, much to the dismay of its many die-hard fans.

In January this year, Hasbro (who sells 'Scrabble' in North America) and Mattel (who sells 'Scrabble' everywhere else) had dubbed "Scrabulous" as piracy, threatening legal action against its creators, Calcutta-based brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, who also run a software development company. At the time, the companies said they hoped it wouldn't come to a point where they'd be forced to shut down the game. But in vain...




The game in question: "Scrabulous", nets over 700,000 players a day; has nearly three million registered users; and 'obsessive' fans who typically have several games going at the same time (against friends, co-workers, family members, and even strangers).

Played mostly on the popular social networking Web site, Facebook, "Scrabulous" is a virtual replica of its board game parent, Hasbro and Mattel's 'Scrabble'. With a board that's just like the one in 'Scrabble', the same number of letter tiles, and the same point values, "Scrabulous" is almost the online 'Scrabble' -- if at all, way more popular -- going by sheer fan following.

Additionally, players can send invites to other Facebook users or search for people to play against by posting messages. There's no time limit on the moves or on the game. However, while "Scrabulous" is able to keep tabs on 'fake' words, it cannot prevent players from cheating. For instance, there's an online 'helper' program that generates a list of words based on the letters that the user has.

The creators of "Scrabulous", Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, remain unfazed by Hasbro and Mattel, and all their threats of legal action, of shutting down the game...

The brothers claim that they did not create "Scrabulous" to make money -- even though they now collect about $25,000 a month from online advertising. They say they just wanted to play 'Scrabble' on their computers, and that their favorite (unauthorized) Web site had just started charging.

As for fans of "Scrabulous", they continue to play the game undeterred by Hasbro and Mattel's threats. If anything, the threats haven't gone down too well with most of them. Some of these fans have started Facebook groups to save the game. For instance, a recently-created Facebook group named "Please God, I Have So Little: Don't Take Scrabulous Too" has tens of thousands of fans who've joined in threatening to boycott Hasbro and Mattel products (including 'Scrabble').

And in the latest twist to this story, two game companies, RealNetworks and Electronic Arts have joined in the fray, saying they've signed deals with Hasbro to create online versions of the company's games. The companies say their versions of 'Scrabble' will be out shortly -- knowing fully well they've got "Scrabulous" to contend with.


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