Scrabble Suffers Hacks And Software Bugs On Facebook
Scrabble, which replaced the popular Scrabulous application that was pulled from Facebook yesterday, has been attacked by a hacker and pulled from the site, newsfactor.com reports. Electronic Arts, which distributes Scrabble in a partnership with Hasbro, released a statement that read: “We’re working with our partners to resolve this issue and have Scrabble back online and ready to play as soon as possible.” Scrabble was apparently shut down soon after the Scrabble knockoff Scrabulous was taken offline yesterday after Hasbro filed suit against the Scrabulous game makers. Speculation about how Scrabble encountered problems today ranges from disgruntled Scrabulous users that might have hacked the system or bugs in the software that simply caused the outage. EA claims outside hackers were at fault, but newsfactor.com reports some believe that may be more of a cover to save face. Scrabulous has a vocal fan base in the U.S. that counted about half a million users before it was pulled from Facebook. A Scrabble Boycott group has come together on Facebook with thousands of members calling for a complete boycott of the Hasbro game to force Scrabulous’ return.
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Comments (1)
Jul 30, 2008 11:08 PM
I can’t tell you how upset some of my friends are that Scrabulous is gone. That EA and Hasbro didn’t seem to realize how rock solid and well done Scrabble for Facebook would need to be to win people over is amazing to me. Hasbro should have purchased Scrabulous and hired the creators not shoved them off Facebook and tried to replace it with their own inferior version.
Jul 31, 2008 9:12 AM
Well, tipical american way of taking care of the opositions. What I really find funy is that hasbro didnt give a crap for Facebook till they found out Scrabulous was making such an hit on the users. Then, like any other Big american corp, they shove a law suite down the Scrabulous creators throat and push them off. Well guess what? Scrabulous is hell alot bettern then your game you just rushed out with numerous bugs, and on top of that ppl are already loyal to Scrabulous and by pushing them off Facebook the way you did wont make ppl like your game better.
Typical big american corporation behaviour that users and people in general are sick off.
Jul 31, 2008 9:13 AM
This is such a travesty. I am in deep withdrawl and am so annoyed at Hasbro.
I refuse to play Scrabble on Facebook. I agree with Jaime in that Hasbro could have played this much better than they did. They look ridiculous with their actions.
Aug 1, 2008 12:21 AM
I love Scrabulous. I played it often. But I played Scrabble long before I played Scrabulous and because Scrabulous was the only way to play it online, played Scrabulous. While I don’t like losing access to such a well designed and easily playable online version of Scrabble, Hasbro has every right to insist that Scrabulous get lost—and replace that game with an official version of Scrabble of their own. It’s Hasbro’s game—they own it. This is about ownership. You can’t steal someone else’s idea for a game and just do whatever you want with it. I do think Hasbro would be wise to give the guys who ripped them off so brilliantly a slap on the wrist, then hire them to work for Hasbro. If they can do this with Scrabble—why couldn’t they do the same for some of Hasbro’s other games? Win-win.