If you were one of the half million people who played Scrabulous on Facebook, or one of the 47,000 who belonged to the "Save Scrabulous" Facebook group, you know that Tuesday was a sad and infuriating day for many people. Due to legal action from Hasbro, Scrabulous was taken down.
If you've read Alex Wipperfurth's Brand Hijack (which I highly recommend), this is not an unfamiliar story. Large corporations often have this kind of knee-jerk reaction when fans take a brand they love and create something new with it. Companies try to control and define their brands so closely that they lose touch with what's really important--their avid fans. Wipperfurth's main assertion is that companies need to let go of their brands and let their fans help define them. They should encourage this fanaticism and support these re-inventions.
Scrabulous is the perfect example. I'm sure people at Hasbro argued that customers were playing Scrabulous online instead of buying new Scrabble boards. But I have a feeling that Scrabulous just created more Scrabble addicts, put Scrabble in the forefront of people's minds and reminded them how great of a game it is. Was there a Hasbro logo on it? No. Did anyone care? Only Hasbro. In the end, Scrabulous probably made more Scrabble fans than anything. And now Hasbro has pissed all those fans off.