NYT discovers Scrabulous; what about Boggle?

The New York Times front-paged an article on the popular Facebook application Scrabulous on Sunday, supplying ammunition to that uppity New Media set that's always accusing the Old Media of being several steps behind. In defense of the Old Media, we here at the Los Angeles Times ran a piece on Scrabulous some months ago — so there, critics!

The NYT piece focuses on the curious and, OK, downright amusing war between physical board game makers and virtual ones. Hasbro and Mattel, which own the rights to the classic Scrabble game, are being obdurate (score: 17!) about admitting that more people probably play Scrabulous every day than they ever did Scrabble.

God forbid these stuffy Old Gaming giants do a deal with the two Indian Web wizards who handed them their best publicity coup in history.

Hasbro and Mattel aren't even directly quoted in the piece (they never returned my calls when I tried to contact them either — it was like trying to get a comment from the Knights Templar). All Hasbro said, in a statement, was that it had its own electronic version of the game coming out. Which could well have trouble competing against the perfectly good Scrabulous. 

The amazing question is: If Facebook is such a threat to established board game revenue, why don't any of the giant game manufacturers have app versions of their games up yet? Battleship*? Nope. Trivial Pursuit? Nope. Risk? Uh-uh. 

There is a Boggle* application.  But what does Hasbro think of that?  The world may never know.

*Note: Sea Wars is a pretty decent BS substitute.

*Note II: Is it me or is the Boggler board, at right, like, extra barren?

Comments

[Mike G]

News about what the NYT does or doesn't do is always uninteresting and irrelevant to me.

[Beck Childs]

I too thought that the NYT piece was derivative of much earlier reports. They also indicated that the Facebook app was 'piracy,' which in my mind indicates that an existing application is being used without a license, as compared to simple patent or trademark infringement as is the case with scrabulous. The NYT doesn't carry nearly as much pop culture news as the LAT, but that's why I read the NYT first. They do deserve a demerit for their too-late piece, but don't get carried away LAT!

[David Sarno]

@ Beck Childs: Reality check appreciated. Just a little good natured ribbing from one Times to the Other.

[Diana W]

Scramble is a great way to play Boggle on Facebook.

(Someone 100 years ago wouldn't have a clue what I just said.)