(full disclosure: I love Scrabble and I’m a Facebook Scrabulous junkie)
A few days ago, I read with horror that Hasbro/Mattel were threatening to shut down Scrabulous, my favorite Facebook application. There was a sense of deja vu as the article was written by Josh Quittner, former editor-in-chief of Business 2.0, the magazine we tried to save last summer with a Facebook group. Quittner, showing an enormous sense of humor, titled his article “Will someone please start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous?”
Yesterday morning, we learned that the two toy companies (who co-own the rights to the Scrabble game) have decided to escalate the legal procedures to Facebook directly and ask the social network site to shut down the very popular application (more than 600,000 active users per day, 26% of the application installed base).
Flickr picture by allyrose18
Following this news, fellow Toronto blogger Matthew Ingram wrote a mordant blog post called “Hasbro and Mattel: Dumb, dumb, dumb“. In it, Ingram writes “From a legal perspective, Hasbro and Mattel are no doubt totally within their rights to have the app removed, or to sue, or do whatever they wish to protect their trademark. But from a marketing perspective I think they are missing the point.”
He’s right. Between the cottage and our home, my family owns four versions of Scrabble (two Deluxe and two travel versions). We want to play the game offline and online but unfortunately Hasbro/Mattel haven’t built one for us within Facebook, where our network of friends currently “resides”. Scrabulous is the only solid alternative. It reminds me of the way the music industry threatens the largest consumers of music, the peer-to-peer network users, by calling them thieves and suing them (a study published late last year showed that P2P downloaders buy more music). Great way to treat your most important customer base…
From a marketing point of view, Hasbro/Mattel could have gone through different routes. Ingram suggested: “So why not just buy the app from the developers for a couple of hundred grand and call it a day?” Attaboy commenting on Ingram’s post proposed: ” they should be demanding that Scrabulous pay a license or share their revenues, not demanding that it be shut down.” I add that shutting down Scrabulous will only serve to anger your biggest Scrabble fans. The big lesson for corporations is: fill consumers’ needs or it will be filled by others, and you might end up looking like bad guys.
Seb Provencher's Blog 
What a shame. No word of a lie, I just bought the boxed game a few weeks ago for the first time specifically because of Scrabulous’ influence on me. They’ve got such opportunity here, I hope they come to.
What a shame. No word of a lie, I just bought the boxed game a few weeks ago for the first time specifically because of Scrabulous’ influence on me. They’ve got such opportunity here, I hope they come to.
I hope they will make an agreement with the developers.
I think there is still (little) time to turn this situation in a win-win one.
I hope they will make an agreement with the developers.
I think there is still (little) time to turn this situation in a win-win one.
They should offer to pay the developers a pittance and thank them for developing such a wonderful app. Make a great public speech about how the world wanted this product so much that developers created this version. Talk about a missed opportunity!
They should offer to pay the developers a pittance and thank them for developing such a wonderful app. Make a great public speech about how the world wanted this product so much that developers created this version. Talk about a missed opportunity!
Scrabulous has rekindled my love for the game, so much that I was going to buy a tabletop Scrabble game to play with friends. Now I don’t feel like giving Hasbro and Mattel any of my money. I’m going to find a used copy somewhere, or make myself one if I have to (which is perfectly legal, as long as I don’t redistribute it). Their actions have already cost them at least one sale.
I completely agree with your analysis: Hasbro and Mattel have clearly shown their short-sightedness here. One would hope that a game company would understand the amazing opportunities social media brings to the (literal) table, but I guess they just don’t “get it.”
It’s your turn to play, by the way. 😛
Scrabulous has rekindled my love for the game, so much that I was going to buy a tabletop Scrabble game to play with friends. Now I don’t feel like giving Hasbro and Mattel any of my money. I’m going to find a used copy somewhere, or make myself one if I have to (which is perfectly legal, as long as I don’t redistribute it). Their actions have already cost them at least one sale.
I completely agree with your analysis: Hasbro and Mattel have clearly shown their short-sightedness here. One would hope that a game company would understand the amazing opportunities social media brings to the (literal) table, but I guess they just don’t “get it.”
It’s your turn to play, by the way. 😛