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By: http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/19902.asp
Scrabulous, one of the most popular and controversial ad-supported applications on Facebook, could now face stiff competition from a well-known gaming company, which has launched its legal version of the popular Scrabble word game.
Scrabulous, which boasts more than 500,000 users, was created by Jayant and Rajat Agarwalla, two brothers living in Calcutta, India. However, the Agarwallas, who said they created the game because they could not find an online version of Scrabble that they liked, sparked an almost instant controversy when they launched their application on Facebook. Neither Hasbro nor Mattel, which own the virtual rights to Scrabble, licensed the Agarwallas’ product.
While all parties are still in the midst of a legal fight, Hasbro has leased its rights to EA Sports, a well-known video game company, which has produced a legal version of Scrabble for Facebook. But there’s a catch. Since Hasbro controls only the U.S. and Canadian rights to the game, EA’s version won’t be available to players around the globe. Scrabulous, which so far is operating without permission, has no such restrictions.
“We strongly believe that people should have the option of playing what they like, rather than be forced by developers into using something they offer only for monetary gains,” Agarwalla said in a statement.
Whether users will opt to forgo the unlicensed version of the game in favor of an approved — but admittedly cumbersome — offering remains to be seen. But for Facebook, the feud is something of a boon. As the company looks for ways to monetize its traffic, one thing is becoming abundantly clear — Facebook is the internet’s clearing house for widgets. Earlier this week, Facebook clamped down on several popular applications that didn’t meet its privacy standards. So far, it’s been the widget makers, not the social network, that have had to back down.
