Most Facebook users have enjoyed playing (or gotten addicted to!) Scrabulous -- the hit online word game. Launched in 2005 by two 20-something Indian brothers, Scrabulous shot to fame as a Facebook application in 2007. Sadly, all of this may come to an end as Hasbro and Mattel (who own the collective IP rights for Scrabble globally) have issued a cease-and-desist order.
Is Scrabulous in hot water because of its name and functional similarity to Scrabble? Has the game's popularity (~600,000 daily active users, generating $25,000 a month via advertising space revenues) detracted from rather than complemented Scrabble's potential sales? Would this have happened if Facebook adopted a different advertising strategy or if the brothers had stuck to their original name -- Bingobinge? Better put your bingos down now!
Read more at this Financial Times article
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