Gawker: valleywag, scrabble

Scrabulous returns wearing fake moustache, calls itself Wordscraper

Jackson West — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:40:00 EDT

Wordscraper is the latest Facebook game that looks remarkably like Scrabble from developers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla. The new name and new look will hopefully be enough to keep the law dogs from Hasbro and Electronic Arts from running it out of town like they did to Scrabulous. Besides the new name and the new color scheme, players are allowed to modify the board and futz with the rules.

If it ends up looking like Scrabble, it'll be the users who are infringing on copyrights, not the creators. One problem Wordscraper might have in becoming as popular as Scrabulous once was? Scrabulous has completely disappeared from Facebook profiles, meaning members will have to look for and re-select Wordscraper. When searching apps for "Scrabble," finding the official version is much easier, and Facebook has made it harder for apps to spread from user to user on the social network. So, anyone up for a game of Attack?

Facebook disables Scrabulous, forces white people to play Scrabble instead

Paul Boutin — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:20:00 EDT

According to a Facebook spokesmonkey, "In response to a legal request from Hasbro, the copyright and trademark holder for Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada, the developers of Scrabulous have suspended their application in the U.S. and Canada until further notice." Let me help you with that blog post you're writing in your head: First they came for the Scrabulous players ... [CNET]

Why Facebook users won't play Scrabble

Owen Thomas — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:40:00 EDT

An official version of Scrabble has made it to Facebook — far too late to displace Scrabulous, the unofficial knockoff, which has millions of users and fans so devoted they've posted music videos on YouTube in honor of the word game. Electronic Arts will release a licensed version for U.S. Facebook users; another official Scrabble application, meant for users abroad, has only 4,000 users.

Electronic Arts wants its games on Facebook

Mary Jane Irwin — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 00:57:11 EST

Electronic Arts is learning to ask questions like "What is your sex song?" and "Hottie" requests. That's right, the videogames giant is leaping into the world of Facebook applications. Former EA Los Angeles general manager Neil Young is in charge of a "stealth division" believed to be EA Blueprint, which will develop and publish games to social networks. At least someone who knows what they're doing will be making games for the network. But if these rumors pan out, this at least sheds a bit more light on the threatened shutdown of Scrabulous.

EA has the rights to make digital copies of Hasbro games, of which it announced a slew this morning. It's also stepping into Scrabulous's ultrapopular arena. As EA Hasbro general manager Chip Lange told me late last week, Electronic Arts wants to get each Hasbro title onto as many platforms as possible. Even if that means sticking us with more useless application requests from friends.

Facebook told to pull Scrabulous

Nick Douglas — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 16:49:30 EST

Hasbro and Mattel, co-owners of Scrabble, asked Facebook to remove its one good app, "Scrabulous." So far the online game's method of distinguishing itself from the board game with the exact same rules (which has its own free web version) has been a disclaimer on the app saying that it's not Scrabble. (Which reminds me it's time to plug the RSS from Gawker into my new site, "Gawkifier.com.") Unless Scrabulous drastically changes its rules or sells to Scrabble, Hasbro and Mattel will most certainly win the battle and Facebook will be that much less fun for the 600 thousand people who played Scrabulous each day.