Lexulous

Last updated
Lexulous
Lexulous.JPG
Type of site
 Casual game
Available in English
Founded Kolkata, India
(5 July 2006)
HeadquartersKolkata, India
Key peopleRajat Agarwalla, Co-founder
Jayant Agarwalla, Co-founder
Services Online word game
Revenue $3,000 per year
Employees2 (January 2008)
URL www.lexulous.com
RegistrationRequired
Launched2005
Current statusActive

Lexulous (formerly Scrabulous) is an online word game based on the commercial board game Scrabble. It is run by an Indian company of the same name on a dedicated website, and is also available within the social networking site Facebook. [1]

Contents

The Scrabulous website was launched in 2005, and the game was added to Facebook as an application in 2007, quickly becoming the most popular game on Facebook. Due to copyright infringement lawsuits, the game was removed from Facebook in 2008, [2] first for North American users and later worldwide, with the Scrabulous website following suit.

A ruling by Delhi High Court allowed Calcutta-based Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla to retain the right to post their word game online, but they were not allowed to use Scrabulous, Scrabble or any other “similar sounding” name. [3] Thus on 27 September 2008, a new website was launched using the new moniker "Lexulous". It has a live version and practice mode, and an option for play by email.

On 20 December 2008, Hasbro withdrew their lawsuit against RJ Softwares. [4] On 1 January 2009, Lexulous was activated on Facebook. As of 23 March 2009, the application had about 585,000 monthly active users. Electronic Arts' version had about 586,000 while RealNetworks' version had 357,000 users.

History

The Scrabulous company was founded by Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, both commerce graduates of St. Xavier's College, Kolkata, India. The Scrabulous website was created at the end of 2005, [5] after the Agarwalla brothers, Rajat and Jayant, who had won numerous Scrabble tournaments, felt the need for a free gaming site where the popular game could be played. It was initially made available as "BingoBinge", with the site moving to Scrabulous on 5 July 2006.

In 2006 the website had 20,000 registered users, [5] but after the developers made an application for the popular social networking website Facebook it had been added to 840,000 user pages, [6] with more than 500,000 users daily, [7] [8] giving it "the most active users of any game that can be played over Facebook". [9]

A game in progress on Facebook Scrabulous screen 20071105.jpg
A game in progress on Facebook

Scrabulous faced legal issues due to its resemblance to Scrabble along with a similar name. It also copied the board layout, rules, and at one stage the number of tiles. These issues forced the removal of the game from Facebook in mid-2008 and its eventual rebranding. The rights to Scrabble are currently owned within the US and Canada by Hasbro, and throughout the rest of the world by Mattel.

According to Anthony Falzone — head of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University — copyright laws do not allow someone to freely copy the particular expression of an idea. [10] In his article in the Wall Street Journal , Jamin Brophy-Warren has said that Hasbro Inc. has refused to comment on legal matters, while the creators have mentioned informing the company about their site. [11] The former Scrabulous website made several references to Scrabble, and previously provided a link to the rules of Scrabble and promoted itself as the best place to play Scrabble online. [12]

It was reported that Hasbro made an attempt to acquire Scrabulous in January 2008 for an undisclosed sum in the range of $10 million. [13] The game had been generating advertising revenue of over $25,000 a month for the Agarwalla brothers, [14] however they refused to sell their application to Hasbro, instead requesting a "multiple" of $10 million. [15] It was reported that the Agarwallas had also been looking for other potential suitors who would be willing to pay higher premiums. [16]

Fan protest

As of October 2007, the term Scrabulous was registered as a trademark and service mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, but on February 2008 it was officially abandoned by the applicant. [17] [18] Hasbro threatened to shut Scrabulous down via legal means in January 2008. [19] Facebook was also asked to pull Scrabulous from its site's application database, but initially demurred. [20] [21]

In reaction to the news that the Facebook application was in legal jeopardy, two groups made a "SCRABULOUS" music video spoof of the Fergie song "Glamorous." The video from web entertainment group TastesLikeTV.com [22] professes "L, T, S, and R / Ain't gonna get you very far," while the YouTube video created by Team Awesome Productions says that Scrabulous is the "swappy, swappy." [23] Both viral web videos were mentioned in the February 22, 2008 issue of Entertainment Weekly.

Mattel launched its official version of online Scrabble, Scrabble by Mattel, on Facebook in late March 2008. [24] [25] As Hasbro controls the rights to Scrabble for North America with Mattel holding them for the rest of the world, [24] the Facebook application is available only to players outside the United States and Canada. [25] Scrabulous users reacted by creating a group called Save Scrabulous, asking Facebook to shut down the game on its site. [8] [26] Reportedly more than 54,000 fans have joined this group. It had also been reported that Scrabulous fans had written to Hasbro and Mattel demanding that the companies make "the right decision", [8] and threatened to stop buying Mattel and Hasbro products if they shut down Scrabulous. [25]

Lawsuit

On 24 July 2008, Hasbro formally sued Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, along with their company, RJ Softwares. The suit claimed Scrabulous violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and infringed upon Hasbro's intellectual property rights. [27] On 29 July 2008, Scrabulous was shut down on Facebook for users in North America, with the error message, "Scrabulous is disabled for US and Canadian users until further notice." [28] Less than a month later, the game was also pulled in all other countries but India. [29]

On 26 September 2008, the Scrabulous web site was suspended. This followed a ruling by the Delhi High Court that although the game Scrabble itself could not be copyrighted, and the Agarwalla brothers could therefore continue to offer their similar game online, they were however not permitted to use the name Scrabulous or any other name similar to that of Scrabble. [30]

Launch of Lexulous

The day after the Delhi High Court ruling, the game was once more made available online under the new name "Lexulous". Whilst the game had an appearance overhaul, it still maintained the essential elements of the Scrabulous version including all of its past records, user IDs, and saved information.

Lexulous also altered the layout of the game to differentiate it more from Scrabble. This change occurred on 3 December 2008, and saw score multipliers moved around the board, and the point score of tiles no longer matching those of Scrabble. In addition a player is now given 8 tiles to play with instead of the traditional 7 tiles. A 4x multiplier had been added to the game, however this feature was removed the next day.

As of early 2011, one of the original Lexulous features, ordinary seven-letter Scrabble (including solitaire and versus the robot) became available again on the Lexulous website for users outside of USA and Canada.

Wordscraper

Wordscraper is a Scrabble-based word game application available on Facebook, also created by the Agarwalla brothers, which received an influx of people from the closure of Scrabulous in North America. It was reported inaccurately that Wordscraper was released after Scrabulous was shut down; however the application has been available since January 2008. [31]

Media and popularity

As one of the first applications launched on Facebook, Scrabulous enjoyed relatively large popularity. It was featured in PC World's 100 best products of 2008. [32]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Scrabble</i> Board game with words

Scrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left to right in rows or downward in columns and are included in a standard dictionary or lexicon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hasbro</span> American multinational toy and entertainment company

Hasbro, Inc. is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of Kenner, Milton Bradley, Parker Brothers, and Wizards of the Coast, among others. As of August 2020, over 81.5% of its shares were held by large financial institutions.

<i>Boggle</i> Timed dice-based word game

Boggle is a word game in which players try to find as many words as they can from a grid of lettered dice, within a set time limit. It was invented by Allan Turoff and originally distributed by Parker Brothers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pogo.com</span> Web based video gaming service

Pogo.com is a free online gaming website that offers over 50 casual games from brands like Hasbro and PopCap Games. It offers a variety of card and board games to puzzle, sports and word games. It is owned by Electronic Arts and is based in Redwood Shores, California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Super Scrabble</span> Board game based on Scrabble

Super Scrabble is a board game introduced in 2004 and a variant of Scrabble. It is played on a 21×21 grid board instead of Scrabble's usual 15×15, and uses twice as many letter tiles.

i2hub was a peer-to-peer file sharing service and program designed and intended primarily for use by university and college students.

The World Scrabble Championship (WSC) is played to determine the world champion in competitive English-language Scrabble. It was held in every odd year from 1991 to 2013; from 2013 onwards, it became an annual event.

Scrabble variants are games created by changing the normal Scrabble rules or equipment.

PlayOK, also known as kurnik, is a website of classic board and card games to play online against live opponents in real-time. It was created in 2001 by Marek Futrega, and was initially a Polish-only website. As of early 2005 it supported over 30 board and card games, and the site is available in 33 languages so far.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amie Street</span> Online music store from 2006-2010

Amie Street was an indie online music store and social network service created in 2006 by Brown University seniors Elliott Breece, Elias Roman, and Joshua Boltuch, in Providence, Rhode Island. The site was notable for its demand-based pricing. The company was later moved to Long Island City in Queens, New York. In late 2010, the site was sold to Amazon who redirected customers to their own website.

LyricWiki was an online wiki-based lyrics database and encyclopedia. In March 2013, it was the seventh largest MediaWiki installation with over 2,000,000 pages including 1.5 million songs. Prior to its shutdown, users on the site could view, edit, and discuss the lyrics of songs, which were also available for purchase from links on the site. Users were told to be mindful of copyright while contributing, and copyright violations were removed upon request. All the lyrics on LyricWiki were licensed through LyricFind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tile tracking</span> Gaming strategy

Tile tracking is a technique most commonly associated with the game of Scrabble and similar word games. It refers to the practice of keeping track of letters played on the game board, typically by crossing letters off a score sheet or tracking grid as the tiles are played. Tracking tiles can be an important aid to strategy, especially during the endgame when there are no tiles left to draw, where careful tracking allows each player to deduce the remaining unseen letters on the opponent's final rack. The marking off of each letter from a pre-printed tracking grid as the tiles are played is a standard feature of tournament play.

Flixster was an American social-networking movie website for discovering new movies, learning about movies, and meeting others with similar tastes in movies, currently owned by parent company Fandango. The formerly independent site, allows users to view movie trailers as well as learn about new and upcoming movies at the box office. It was originally based in San Francisco, California and was founded by Joe Greenstein and Saran Chari on January 20, 2006. It was also the former parent company of Rotten Tomatoes from January 2010 to February 17, 2016. On February 17, 2016, Flixster, including Rotten Tomatoes, was acquired by Fandango.

Hasbro Family Game Night is a series of video games that adapt board games manufactured by Hasbro.

Wordscraper is a Scrabble-style word game formerly available as a Facebook application. It was created by the Agarwalla brothers Rajat and Jayant, creators of Scrabulous, and differs from Scrabble by having no fixed board design or tile distribution, instead prompting the user to choose their own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NASPA Games</span> Scrabble tournament and club organization

NASPA Games, formerly known as North American Scrabble Players Association (NASPA), is a nonprofit organization founded in 2009 to administer competitive Scrabble tournaments and clubs in North America. It officially took over these activities from the National Scrabble Association (NSA) on July 1, 2009. As of July 31, 2021, the organization is no longer associated with the North American owner of the SCRABBLE® trademarks, Hasbro, Inc.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zynga</span> American social game developer

Zynga Inc. is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its mission as "connecting the world through games".

Scrabble Trickster is a word game created by Mattel and announced on 6 April 2010, designed as a spin-off to one of the company's products, Scrabble. Mattel intends to sell the product in Europe starting in July 2010, but not in North America, because the company owns the rights to Scrabble and its derivatives worldwide except for in North America, where rival company Hasbro holds control of the game.

<i>Words with Friends</i> Multiplayer crossword style video game

Words with Friends is a multiplayer computer word game developed by Newtoy. Players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style in a manner similar to the classic board game Scrabble. The rules of the two games are similar, but Words with Friends is not associated with the Scrabble brand. Up to 40 games can be played simultaneously using push notifications to alert players when it is their turn. Players may look up friends either by username or through Facebook, or be randomly assigned an opponent through "Smart Match". Players can also find potential opponents using Community Match.

References

  1. ↑ Guha, Aniruddha (Jan 4, 2009). "Facebook game 'Scrabulous' returns as 'Lexulous'". DNA. Mumbai: Diligent Media Corporation Ltd. Retrieved December 1, 2013.
  2. ↑ 'Scrabulous' disappears from Facebook after Hasbro suit, CNET, Retrieved December 01, 2013
  3. ↑ "The game is won, the name lost". Calcutta, India: Telegraphindia.com. 2008-09-26. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013. Retrieved 2010-02-28. Brothers get court nod for online wordplay, but can't call it Scrabulous
  4. ↑ Sivaraman, Aarthi (2008-12-15). "Hasbro withdraws suit against Scrabuluous creator". Reuters.com. Retrieved 2010-02-28.
  5. 1 2 "Kolkata brothers 'scrabble' Facebook's hottest game". Hindustan Times. 2007-10-01. Archived from the original on December 8, 2008. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
  6. ↑ Stone, Brad (2007-10-04). "In Facebook, Investing in a Theory (page 2)". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
  7. ↑ "Facebook / Scrabulous" . Retrieved 2007-12-21., facebook.com
  8. 1 2 3 Paris, Natalie (2008-01-19). "Scrabulous fans fight back to save game". London: The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2008-01-27. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  9. ↑ Neelakantan, Shailaja (2007-10-11). "Students Score a Hit with Scrabulous". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2007-12-21.
  10. ↑ Brophy-Warren, Jamin (2007-10-13). "Networking Your Way To a Triple-Word Score". Wall Street Journal Online. Retrieved 2007-11-05.
  11. ↑ Pang, Kevin (2008-01-18). "My latest obsession: Scrabulous". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  12. ↑ "Scrabble's C&D Spells the End for Scrabulous?". The Legality. 2008-01-23. Archived from the original on 2008-01-27. Retrieved 2008-01-25.
  13. ↑ "The Bigger Questions Behind the Scrabulous shutdown" . Retrieved 2008-08-02.
  14. ↑ "EA to launch rival to Scrabulous". Archived from the original on 2008-08-04. Retrieved 2008-08-02.
  15. ↑ India Knowledge@Wharton | Scrabble over Scrabulous, Livemint, Aug 31 2008, Retrieved December 1, 2013
  16. ↑ "So Long, Scrabulous!". Huffington Post. 2008-07-29. Retrieved 2008-08-02.
  17. ↑ "Latest status info on Serial Number: 77304811". US Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  18. ↑ "Lexulous is a scrabble word". wordcreation.info.
  19. ↑ McCarthy, Caroline (2008-01-11). "Big surprise: Scrabble manufacturer targets 'Scrabulous' online game". c/net News. Archived from the original on 2008-09-05. Retrieved 2008-01-14.
  20. ↑ "Facebook asked to pull Scrabulous". BBC News. 2008-01-16. Retrieved 2008-01-16.
  21. ↑ McCarthy, Caroline (2008-01-16). "'Scrabulous' debate may rewrite the rules of the game". c/net News. Archived from the original on 2008-09-05. Retrieved 2008-02-04.
  22. ↑ "Scrabulous music video". TastesLikeTV.com. Archived from the original on 2008-02-16. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  23. ↑ "Scrabulous Music Video". Team Awesome Productions. Retrieved 2008-03-02.
  24. 1 2 Foley, Stephen (2004-04-08). "Mattel takes on Scrabulous in war of the words". The Independent. London. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  25. 1 2 3 Timmons, Heather (2004-04-07). "Scrabble Tries to Fight a Popular Impostor at Its Own Game". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  26. ↑ "Save Scrabulous". Facebook. Retrieved 2008-02-12.
  27. ↑ Wong, Wailin (2008-07-25). "Hasbro sues, seeks to ban Scrabulous from Facebook". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on 2008-08-01. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  28. ↑ Goel, Vindu (2009-07-29). "Game Over: Scrabulous Shut Down on Facebook". New York Times. Retrieved 2009-07-29.
  29. ↑ Hachman, Mark (2008-08-26). "Save for India, 'Scrabulous' is Dead". PC Magazine.
  30. ↑ "The game is won, the name lost - Brothers get court nod for online wordplay, but can't call it Scrabulous". Calcutta, India: The Telegraph (Kolkata). 2009-09-26. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013.
  31. ↑ Timmons, Heather (2008-04-04). "On Facebook, an 11-Letter Synonym for Scrabulous Turns Out to Be Wordscraper". The New York Times . Retrieved 2008-04-05.
  32. ↑ Sullivan, Mark, ed. The 100 Best Products of 2008 Archived 2008-06-11 at the Wayback Machine . PC World. 2008-05-07.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.