Scrabble discovers loyalty a better draw than licensing

When Hasbro's lawsuit forced the shutdown of the popular Facebook application Scrabulous, many assumed that they'd seen the virtual end of Scrabble on Facebook. While Facebook now has an Electronic Arts-branded Hasbro Scrabble, it's a beta version with bugs, and has not become popular with the U.S.- and Canada-based users who are the only ones allowed to play: It's earned an average 1.2 rating out of 5 possible stars in 344 reviews. The Gamehouse-branded Mattel version for the rest of the world has met a similar fate, earning a slightly higher 1.7 rating. Combined, the two licensed Scrabble versions have over 250,000 installations since their release.

The allfacebook blog notes that the Agarwalla brothers have replaced Scrabulous with Wordscraper, a clone of the original Scrabulous with just enough rule and board changes to hopefully scrape past any additional lawsuits. Scrabulous fans are taking note, installing Wordscraper over 133,000 times since its launch (or relaunch, depending on how you look at it), and rating the game a 4.6 out of 5 in 105 reviews.

Beyond Scrabulous loyalty, however, the biggest problem with the licensed versions is the lack of a global application. Due to archaic licensing agreements, Hasbro owns the rights in the U.S. and Canada, while Mattel owns the rights for the rest of the world.

While that may make sense for board games, it makes no sense at all for online games, where users don't want to be limited by their physical location. If Scrabble only lets me play users in my own country and Canada while Wordscraper lets me play users in any country, it's fairly obvious which app is going to win.

While Hasbro's actions may be justified based on intellectual property law, when it comes to common sense and the court of popular opinion, Hasbro and Mattel are losing. A co-branded online effort might have made more of a dent in luring Scrabulous fans over to a licensed product. Instead, the Aggarwalla brothers are still winning, regardless of the end result in the legal arena.

More news, commentary, and predictions from The Industry Standard:

• News: Scrabulous returns to Facebook
• News: A new paradigm for copyright law: Shifting the focus to the user
• News: Facebook application Scrabulous shuts down in the US and Canada, as it faces Hasbro lawsuit