Scrabulous's Revenge: What Game Makers And Music Have In Common

Blaise Zerega wants a triple-word-score.  Yesterday's decision by Scrabulous to pull its super-popular online knock-off from U.S. and Canadian Facebook sites in the face of mounting legal pressure from Hasbro, is, as Yogi Berra might say, deja vu all over again. 

Once again, here is an embattled industry -- is this case board game manufacturers, getting walloped by a digital tidal wave. And the reaction? Lawsuits. Sounds a lot like Napster and Music. In that case, Mr. Fanning and others developed a superior means of distribution, without the content.

In this case, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the brothers behind Scrabulous, not only came up with a superior means of distribution, but arguably came up with superior content as well. The proof is in the uproar by angry fans who are not exactly flocking to Hasbro's sanctioned online version of Scrabble, produced with EA.

There are many, many other examples from film (Kazaa) and book publishing (Google). to name but two. Just think how NBC is going  to react when people start streaming the Beijing Olympics from their mobile phones to the web -- so much for being the exclusive broadcaster.

But as the past few years have shown, the embattled industry may be the short term winner by shutting down a site or two. But eventually the digital tidal wave overtakes them. The only way for such an industry to survive is to invest and embrace.

For the life of me, I don't understand why Hasbro simply didn't buy Scrabulous and hire the brothers Agarwalla to develop online versions of its other board games.