Scrabble has recently emerged from the nerd ghetto, thanks to Scrabulous, the Facebook application that lets users play the crossword game. But Hasbro (the game’s North American distributor) and Mattel (who sells it everywhere else) are none too pleased about this rip-off (and the $25,000 per month its creators make off ads). The app might’ve gone under the radar of the corporations’ crack legal team for who-knows how long, but the game has reached critical mass, with over half-a-million players using it on a daily basis out of the two-million-person installed base.
According to a BBC News story, the companies have issued a cease-and-desist letter to Facebook (who have yet to comment), the news of which has triggered an outcry from all the Scrabulous addicts. A “Save Scrabulous” group has been started on Facebook with a whopping 20,000 members and thousands more signing up every few hours.
What will happen if Scrabulous gets shut down? Uh, work, I guess?
