: They are in a bit of an alphabet soup but like true cyber-innovators, Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, the makers of Scrabulous, are ready to bounce back
When scrabulous was taken off Facebook in July after Hasbro Inc threatened legal action against its makers, fans moaned in protest. “Save Scrabulous” clubs sprouted on the Web and furious players called Hasbro Inc, the company which has a copyright on the original game Scrabble, fascist. Brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, who had posted an adapted version of Scrabble on Facebook, had an answer—an 11-letter synonym for Scrabulous, Wordscraper. The reception to the new game was the stuff of social networking bliss: users offered praise and panned the name, and the Agarwalla brothers answered online, promising changes and thanking the players. In a few days, Wordscraper had spawned numerous new fan groups and a “board design workshop”.
Back in their house in south Kolkata, the brothers seem a little tentative about the legal wrangles but nonetheless pleased by the support they have got. “It (Hasbro’s lawsuit against the brothers) was a setback. But users are still accessing and playing the game everywhere else,” says Jayant, the younger of the brothers.
Three years after they launched their online word game, Agarwallas are now perhaps India’s only bona fide Internet celebrities. Last year, they posted their game on Facebook. The result: a mind-boggling five lakh users daily. The game has been added on 8,40,000 pages on the Internet, with users outside the US and Canada continuing to play the game online. Through the little attachment ads displayed with the game, they have been earning $25,000 or Rs 1 lakh a month over the past few months. Rumour has it that Hasbro Inc, before taking legal action, had offered the Agarwallas something close to $10million to buy out Scrabulous, but the proposal was turned down. “But you know, it’s never been about making money. Our motivation was to launch a free online word game worldwide that no Indian has ever done in the past. And surprisingly, we succeeded. Since Scrabulous is not only free, it can be played off-line and each game can be played over a long period of time, say over three or even 10 days,” says Jayant.
The Agarwalla brothers, in some sense, are true cyber innovators; they belong to the Internet that has killed the copyright. Where every idea is up for change and improvisation....
