This week I started playing Scrabbulous (an online version of Scrabble) on Facebook with my sister, and I'm planning games with my grandma, my mom, and some friends. Yes, that's right, both my Mom and my Grandma are on Facebook, but I'm still using Sarah's Facebook ID.
Scrabble was the game of choice at my grandparents' house when I was growing up. Now with this online version, we can play with people who are far away, and we don't have to wait on each other to figure out their own plays.
It's great, and a lot of other people think so, too. Some 2,000,000 people have registered to play this game on Facebook, and 500,000 play it every day.
Scrabbulous was invented by a pair of Indian brothers, and the owners of Scrabble are not happy! The game has small advertisements that attach to the screen when you play, so with that much play, they are raking it it.
See this article for the basic facts.
And see this article by a techie online magazine for a new-world, post-modern perspective. The rules are changing.
It seems to me like innovation is changing all the way around, and this is just a classic example.
2 comments:
I just wanted to play on my computer--not on-line to relieve so of the pressure of my job when needed--just one game or so at a time--but now I can't access the game at all without getting a lot of garbage sites. I ordered stand alone Scrabble from Spin Top--but when I installed it it had bugs in it and also installed a lot of other games which I did not want .. I wasted my money and will have to pay to have my computer looked at now.
So, it seems that I (and many others) were too hasty in our condescending disapproval of Scrabble's battle to remove Scrabbulous from facebook. The real owners of Scrabble soon loaded their own legit version of Scrabble, and now they are reaping the advertising profits from all of those facebook users.
Unfortunately, Scrabble's North American rights and International rights are owned separately, so now I can't play against my family in North America. It seems like the two groups ought to be able to work out some kind of revenue sharing deal that would increase the total for everyone, rather than shutting out cross-over play.
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