It’s all over the blogosphere, and the media, that Scrabulous – a wildly popular Facebook Application ripped off of the classic game Scrabble – has been dismantled due to legal action from toy and board game manufacturer Hasbro (Scrabulous Barred to North American Users). Opinions on the issue have ranged in flavor from outrage with a twist of withdrawl to rightious indignation (“corporate greed and ego. it’s pretty simple. ” v. “The creators of Scrabulous are unimaginative thieves. How hard is it to create a software application that rips off an existing board game?”).
Whether you believe the programmers were justified or not in creating the interactive board game, it is universally undeniable that Hasbro has a big black stain on its image in the interactive sphere – a highly profitable, fast-moving culture that is often nearly impossible to nail down using traditional corporate “methodologies.” Rather than capitalizing on the innovation of two young programmers overseas, who nailed the Facebook market and did it to the tune of $500k, Hasbro took the heavy handed approach and will probably come out of the mess at a loss due to the costs of a) lawyers; b) an interactive PR agency; c) programmers to build a Facebook app that will meet the needs of half a million outraged consumers.
Once again, corporate America has proven itself incapable of moving as fast as the global interactive, internet-based consumer. Consumers don’t care about complex legal explanations or back stories (Silly Split Rights). Hasbro needs to drop the moral high-ground and find a way to make good fast before interest in the story dies and consumers walk away – unfortunate headlines like “Scrabulous is Dead, Hasbro’s Version Brain-Dead” ringing in their ears.
