Photos by Leo Reynolds

Hasbro finally took out Scrabulous today. The incredibly popular Facebook application had been dancing on the toy company’s intellectual property for almost a year now, so not many were shocked. It was a play straight from the book. The problem is that the book has been out of print for years.

Don Reisinger at Mashable makes the excellent point that one of the real issues here is that two brothers from India accomplished something that mega-company Hasbro failed to do — generate interest and excitement in Scrabble. Lots of interest in fact. I never really enjoyed the game until I discovered Scrabulous. With a daily average of half a million users, Scrabulous was one of Facebook’s most popular applications. Hasbro, you don’t sue people who do that for you. You hire them!

It bears repeating, 500,000 people a day were playing Scrabulous. Hasbro’s response to this surge of interest in their dusty old brand was to say, “Sure, we’ll engage with you. But on our terms.” Did Hasbro really think that crowd would respond favorably when they pulled the plug? Did they think we’d greet them as liberators?

Let’s not forget the catalyst in this clever scheme. Hasbro waited to file suit until the day their shiny new Facebook application launched. Scrabble Beta took almost 8 months to develop. That’s almost as long as it’s taken to rebuild the collapsed I-35 bridge in Minneapolis.

Here’s where they dropped the other ball. Scrabble Beta is clunky, needlessly animated and sports a crowded, busy design. Compare this to Scrabulous’s clean, fast, simple interface. I would go so far as to call Scrabulous elegant in comparison.

There’s no excuse for this. Hasbro had the resources, time and motivation to make Scrabble Beta the ultimate Facebook application. Hell, they could have just copied Scrabulous. Wouldn’t that have been ironic?

Brands need to pay more attention than this. This is an example of the fundamental difference between the old way and today. The rules have changed. Companies like Hasbro missed the memo.

The next time half a million people raise their hand and want to engage with your brand, what will your response be?

Tags: facebook, hasbro, mistakes, scrabble, scrabulous