"Not Invented Here" for a Triple Word Score
by Dave Tufts - July 29, 2008 / 2:01pm View more articles
Scrabulous, one of the most popular Facebook add-on applications, is no longer available to many users. Scrabulous was an online copy of Hasbro's board game that allowed users to play Scrabble with each other.
There are a number of articles explaining what happened, but I don't understand why—from a business perspective—Hasbro wanted to remove the popular copy.
Facebook users could choose to play Scrabulous, the rip-off game, or an official version created by Hasbro.
The difference in the two versions is summed up accurately in today's Dallas Morning News: "[Scrabulous] was simple, easy to use and very quick loading. On the other hand, Hasbro and Electronic Arts recently released an official Scrabble application for Facebook, which is heavily graphical, slow and clunky."
As noted in the Washington Post, Scrabulous had 3 million registered users and over half a million people were actively playing on Facebook, while only 14,000 users had added the official Hasbro version.
After a couple months of threats and lawsuits, Scrabulous' developers gave in to Hasbro's demands and blocked their application from US and Canadian Facebook users.
I might understand Hasbro's decision if Scrabulous somehow diluted the Scrabble brand, but the rip-off was actually more on brand—capturing the simplicity of the board game—than Hasbro's clunky online version.
I'd also understand the lawsuits if Scrabulous cut into Hasbro's sales, but that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact, my wife and I recently bought the board game. It was the free Scrabulous that reminded us how fun Hasbro's game was.
From the business side, why wouldn't Hasbro put all their effort into buying Scrabulous. Instead, Hasbro sued the two brothers who created Scrabulous and hired Electronic Arts (EA), a gigantic and probably very expensive video game company, to create their own slower, less fun, official game.
Was the cost of hiring EA, plus the cost of lawsuits really less than the cost of buying out Scrabulous? I guess not...once Hasbro factored in the cost of admitting that two brothers can more accurately recreate the Scrabble experience than the official company can.
There are a number of articles explaining what happened, but I don't understand why—from a business perspective—Hasbro wanted to remove the popular copy.
Facebook users could choose to play Scrabulous, the rip-off game, or an official version created by Hasbro.
The difference in the two versions is summed up accurately in today's Dallas Morning News: "[Scrabulous] was simple, easy to use and very quick loading. On the other hand, Hasbro and Electronic Arts recently released an official Scrabble application for Facebook, which is heavily graphical, slow and clunky."
As noted in the Washington Post, Scrabulous had 3 million registered users and over half a million people were actively playing on Facebook, while only 14,000 users had added the official Hasbro version.
After a couple months of threats and lawsuits, Scrabulous' developers gave in to Hasbro's demands and blocked their application from US and Canadian Facebook users.
I might understand Hasbro's decision if Scrabulous somehow diluted the Scrabble brand, but the rip-off was actually more on brand—capturing the simplicity of the board game—than Hasbro's clunky online version.
I'd also understand the lawsuits if Scrabulous cut into Hasbro's sales, but that doesn't seem to be the case. In fact, my wife and I recently bought the board game. It was the free Scrabulous that reminded us how fun Hasbro's game was.
From the business side, why wouldn't Hasbro put all their effort into buying Scrabulous. Instead, Hasbro sued the two brothers who created Scrabulous and hired Electronic Arts (EA), a gigantic and probably very expensive video game company, to create their own slower, less fun, official game.
Was the cost of hiring EA, plus the cost of lawsuits really less than the cost of buying out Scrabulous? I guess not...once Hasbro factored in the cost of admitting that two brothers can more accurately recreate the Scrabble experience than the official company can.
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4 Comments
If your "two band band" creating fun, addictive facebooks apps can breath life into your flagging brand - why not let them? It's a simple approach of using it to your advantage.
Ask the Scrabulous people to insert an advert for the Board Game into the app. Job done. It costs marketeers nothing as long as no-one is profiteering. Brand should be working with social network communities, not against them
furthermore, the brothers knew what they had done was thievery and wrong (even the name of their game shows you they had well seen a scrabble board and knew what they were doing...) they do *not* deserve to be rewarded for taking the low road, even IF Hasbro had a choice in the matter. Hasbro has chosen to take it step further with legal action, and again... i'm not one of the ones who thinks it's B.S. i think the brothers were idiots to rip off such a branded mainstay of modern culture and they need to be punished for their stupidity... it will help dissuade any future idiots from trying to get rich off the same thing. come up with your own idea or else deal with you station in life... don;t rip off something that does not belong to you.... i guess we all need to back to kindergarten to re-learn some of the basics.