Scrabulous Shutdown Now Near Global

Mattel Pulls the Plug

Facebook has expanded the shutdown of the hit online game Scrabulous to all countries except India.  Mattel made a formal request for the block based on its ownership of the rights to Scrabble for territories outside North America.  Mattel filed a suit against Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla in India, and the results of that suit will determine whether the game stays online there. 

A suite by Hasbro, which owns Scrabble rights in the U.S. and Canada, led the brothers to disable their game for those territories (see “Hasbro Suit Sidelines Scrabulous”); they refused to do the same based on the Mattel suit, and Facebook blocked the game itself.  

Hasbro and Mattel have been trying to promote their own online version of Scrabble; in the meantime the Agarwalla brothers have offered Wordscraper, a similar game which they believe has enough differences from Scrabble to avoid copyright issues (see “Scrabulous Fans Turn to Wordscraper”).