Popular Facebook Scrabulous Game App Pulled

Posted on July 29, 2008

There are a lot of annoying Facebook apps and there are a few Facebook apps that are enjoyable and/or add value. One of the Facebook applications that was actually fun was Scrabulous. Unfortunately, it has now been pulled by the developers because of a lawsuit from Hasbro, the owner of the board game Scrabble.

Some are quick to call Hasbro stupid over its Scrabulous decision. The problem is Scrabulous was an unapproved version of Hasbro's Scrabble board game and Hasbro already had a licensing deal with Electronic Arts. Hasbro may not have had much room to negotiate with the developers of Scrabulous if they had already licensed the rights to an electronic version of the game to Electronic Arts.

Facebook certainly wanted the game to remain but in the end they don't really have any say in the matter. Hasbro and Electronic Arts are going to try and get people to use their Scrabble version which is now on Facebook. Some people may not try the new Scrabble app it if they are angry about Scrabulous.