Hasbro and Mattel both own the license to Scrabble in the marketplace. Both parties have invested significant resources over time to develop the Scrabble brand we all know, play, and love. The controversy now is that a web startup, not even a startup but just a Facebook App, Scrabulous is stealing the limelight from these major toy maker conglomerates. Hasbro/Mattel has a strong case of envy and jealousy because Scrabulous has innovated a way to get 600,000 people to play online daily. Blarguments would bet the farm that there are less daily players of scrabble in the real world. So now Hasbro/Mattel has to decide how to resolve their case of envy.
The course of action by large companies in a situation like this goes one of two ways. Either they decide to pay lawyers tons of money and sue them, or they’ll buy them out. I am wondering WHY they didn’t do the latter. In a single move, they instantly polarized hundreds of thousands of people against their cause. They need to realize that those specific people wont play their game in real life — they do it BECAUSE its on facebook. Those 600,000 daily users are not stolen from their board games, and Mattel/Hasbro isn’t making penny less from the existence of the game. In fact- Blarguments will even argue that the mere existence of Scrabulous had a positive influence on worldwide scrabble play, and even Scrabble game purchases.
Further proof of why Scrabulous is helping the scrabble brand instead of hurting it with its alleged infringement, exists in these two examples. They show that an online free component actually boosts real world sales–Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth (I blogged about a few days ago), and Radiohead. First, Eric Wilkinson’s letter to rlslog.net generated a TON of positive buzz, and a following that couldn’t be bought with unlimited funds. Second, Radiohead offered their CD for free download (which they’ve since stopped), and is now topping the charts in album sales. Both parties here are genius, everyone else (Mattel/Hasbro, Metallica, MPAA, RIAA, etc) are idiotic.
Go to Mashable and vote what they should do.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Eric D. Wilkinson // Jan 17, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Clearly there is a generation gap between the people that run these companies, who are drug kicking and screaming into the 21st century, with the lawyers and what not, and the younger generation that is innovative, creative and embraces new technology. I agree with you 100%. Mattel & Hasbro should be happy that the inventors of Scrabulous did the work for them. They should pay these guys, slap their brand name on the game and move on.
Technology, the internet, innovation ain’t going anywhere. Embrace it. Work with it and make it work for you.
By the way, “Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth” is available on DVD everywhere!
Eric D. Wilkinson
Producer
Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth
http://www.manfromearth.com
2 Leon // Jan 17, 2008 at 10:04 pm
These inflexible large corporations. Don’t they see that Scrabulous is helping them by bringing Scrabble to the masses?
3 StanHayes // Jan 18, 2008 at 9:28 am
People behind the game Scrabble are uppity about their brand, who would’ve thunk it.
4 JEMi // Jan 20, 2008 at 12:51 pm
mhmm.
yea.. they really should have tried to buy them out.
because now, its REALLY going to suck.
yet another point for the new generation.
Leave a Comment