Game-maker to offer Scrabble application for Facebook

New York: As Facebook has blossomed into a hot internet hangout, its users have passed countless hours playing Scrabble with friends - or at least, an Indian-created unauthorised version of the word game that Scrabble's owners have tried to shut down.

Now a video game maker will try to legitimise the activity.

Electronic Arts said this month it will release a Scrabble application, a web program that Facebook members can plug into their profile pages.

EA hopes to capitalise on the success of an unauthorised version called Scrabulous, which was created by two brothers in Calcutta, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, and has nearly a half-million daily users, despite efforts by Scrabble's owners to squish it.

EA spokeswoman Trudy Muller said the video game maker's offering would be "an authorised, licensed Scrabble game experience that people familiar with Scrabble can instantly recognise as Scrabble."

It's unclear whether legality will be enough to lure Facebook members - and their friends - already familiar with the unauthorised version.

One key limitation is that EA's Facebook game will be available only to US and Canadian users, as determined by the numeric internet address of their computers.

EA is producing Scrabble under a year-old licensing deal with Hasbro, which owns the game's North American rights. RealNetworks already has made a version available elsewhere under a deal with Mattel, holder of the rights outside the United States and Canada.

The split in rights means that Facebook users in, say, San Francisco won't be able to play the authorised version with friends in London, so they might still turn to the unauthorised Scrabulous.

Hasbro officials played down the restrictions, however, saying players tend to reside in the same country, given the world's linguistic differences.

More than six months in development, the EA game will be free and won't carry any ads for now.

EA is trying to generate interest for Scrabble on other computing platforms.

EA recently made it available on its ad-supported Pogo.com site, and it sells versions for Apple's iPods for about $5 and for various mobile devices starting at $4. EA has rights to offer it on digital devices like Nintendo's Wii game console as well.

Mark Blecher, general manager for digital media and gaming at Hasbro, said his company has been working with EA to make the look and feel consistent across platforms, giving the authorised version what he called an advantage over Scrabulous.