Well, it looks like Hasbro has finally noticed Scrabulous. For those who don't already play Scrabulous, it is a wonderful Facebook App that allows you to play Scrabble against your friends. Very well designed and easy to use -- an excellent example of building an app well. If Hasbro is smart, they'll just buy Scrabulous. After all, it has an audience of players, is already written, and will only get more use if it actually is Scrabble. What is more likely to happen is that Hasbro will engage in a protracted legal battle, Scrabulous will be forced to shut down, and Hasbro will replace it with a horribly broken "official" Scrabble app that won't be nearly as well built or easy to use. That will be a shame for the 2.5 million current players.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
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3 comments:
Unfortunately, it seems like the typical reaction is happening again: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080111/152626.shtml
An interesting stream of predictions, Cory. While I agree that Scrabulous will be shutdown, I don't think that Hasbro will release a substitute application. Imho, Hasbro doesn't want a free, web-based version of their game at all. Their goal is to sell board games. Why would anyone want to purchase a board game they can play far more conveniently for free?
If you're a fan of corporate marketing strategy, here's my prediction: Now that 2.5 million folks know what the game is and boosted by national media coverage (including blogs), I predict that once Scrabulous is down, Scrabble board game sales go up! Maybe that is why Hasbro waited... for an increased (even addicted) playerbase and now tons of free publicity... a triple word score for corporate marketing?
Yes, like GOM.
Prokofy
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