Who owns scrabble game

In , the Brunots realized they could no longer make the games fast enough to meet the growing interest. As stories about it appeared in national newspapers, magazines and on television, it seemed that everybody had to have a set immediately. Competitive Scrabble game play is widely popular much in the manner of chess and bridge. The next generation of Scrabble players is steadily growing with over a half million kids playing the game in more than 18, schools nationwide through Youth Scrabble programs.

Hundreds of these students currently compete in state and regional championships across the country. Alfred Mosher Butts enjoyed playing the Scrabble game with family and friends to the end of his life.

He passed away in April at the age of This page was last edited on 27 July , at Instead of giving up, he persisted. He kept pushing his game until he met an interesting person called James Brunot.

A few years after coming up with Criss Cross Words, Alfred met a board game obsessed entrepreneur called James Brunot , who showed great interest in the game. James made it his mission to bring commercial success to Criss Cross as he saw it had some great potential. In fact, he sat down with Alfred, and together they went over the design, the rules, the gameplay, and finally the name.

Changes were made to make the game more enjoyable and attractive to game board enthusiasts. Together they decided to change the name from Criss Cross Words to Scrabble. When James Brunot took on the marketing of the Scrabble game, he started out working from a small abandoned schoolhouse in Connecticut. He rented the property and intended to use it to grow the game through self-manufacturing and self-marketing too. He and a few of his friends worked tirelessly to manufacture a total of 12 games per hour.

There was obviously a lot of effort involved as each letter hand to be hand-stamped onto each tile. It was still quite sometime before a factory took over the manufacturing of these pieces. There was nothing easy about getting Scrabble off the ground, even though many people had an interest in it. While they had made a loss, they had also manufactured and sold over 2, games, which was promising. While the group was running at a loss, the game was starting to grow in popularity.

The number of consumers of the game began to increase, and James Brunot kept up production. The user interface and navigation seem like something from the early days of Windows, except worse.

There is no coherent, intuitive structure at all. This is, frankly, annoying as hell, as they seem deliberately trying to trap one into accidentally tapping on one of their other ridiculous games. Again, did anyone who built this app ever actually play? The ads and pop-ups are so infuriating as to make me want to hurl my phone against the nearest wall, or scour the neighborhood for an abandoned cinder block with which to crush it. They should stuff this thing in a sack and drown it in a radioactive power plant cooling pool.

You may already be aware, but their is an excellent, free, no-frills site called isc. This will make me keep my ancient Ipad until my dying day. I play Scrabble daily, as does my year old father. He asked me what he was supposed to do about it…who could he call?

Do these Scrabble GO people think this will entice anyone to play? BTW, your bathroom comment made me laugh out loud, so thank you for that. I am very disappointed that it is being discontinued. I agree with everyone else that Scrabble GO is garbage, and of no appeal to any serious Scrabble player.

We need the existing app either continued or replaced by something similar. We can all do without the chintziness, bells, whistles, silly prizes, gems, cheat aids, and distractions of Scrabble GO.

I believe I originally paid for the version, so that may have made the difference. I can confirm that the new game is truly awful. This is very disappointing. I really enjoy the current one. It is a welcome reprieve. Double triple-word score of points for wingover.

Loved it when it went online so I could play with friends in other states. Are the perpetrator owners of this Scrabble game change hearing our out crys???

I want our old version back…. Check out WordFeud…. If you play WWF just use adblock ,,,,it will knock out most the ads,,a free ap..

I constantly see advice about personalizing the customer experience, etc, etc. Kind of silly and short-sighted. I whole heartedly agree with you. How can we get through to the powers that be to give us back the adult version? That looks truly awful. Been playing scrabble for a long time on this app. Has anyone noticed recently on expert mode that computer gets an obscene number of bingo plays? Anyone else noticed this? Oh my gosh! I thought I was going crazy. Thank you for writing this. I am on chemo, had a child home with flu symptoms and needed Scrabble desperately.

Scrabble go was a nightmare and I am getting lots of spam texts. Scrabble Go is a ridiculous waste of of time. Love this! I shared a similar review with Scrabble GO…just before I uninstalled the app! Juvenile drivel I believe is how it ended!

My husband in FL has enjoyed playing Scrabble online with his 88 year old mother in OH for years, nearly every evening. Pleeeease bring the old Scrabble back NOW! Thank you so much for writing this! The new game is disgusting. So many people love the original game.

The new one is wrong and a total failure in every way. A few weeks ago I left a scathing review of it on the iTunes aApp Store, as had thousands of other people. I just checked and all reviews have been deleted. I feel crazy for being so upset about this, but I am. Is there anything we can do? Please list alternative games.

Thank you! I have been playing Scrabble HD for years, several times a day. Now when we are housebound and really need it, it will be gone in June. I tried to introduce a friend to the game and found only GO is available.

This game is rubbish. I started a game, was going well, then could not get back to it, We should be able to keep the old game and let the new one be available for those who want it. They need to understand that there are millions of us who grew up playing real Scrabble, and many of us have migrated to online Scrabble.

I despise it. There are way too many distracting bells, whistles, built-in cheats, gems, prizes, bots, and treasure chests, not to mention slow transitions and difficult navigation. I deleted Scrabble Go and I guess will have to find something else to do when the proper version is deleted.

Hey, Gareth! Look up Wordfeud. It is a Scrabble without the nonsense and with some really good players. I also agree completely. After 20 minutes of playing with a friend, we both agreed that it was awful and deleted the app. Never again. At least until June. Then I guess we will have to find soothing new to play. Not happy at all!

Scrabble GO is an obscenity. Can only imagine what Scopely would do if they owned the sole rights to chess …. I am really unhappy. That to me equals a contract. They have broken their contract. I cannot install the origional Scrabble on my IPad.

I had to deleted it after it totally stalled on a word. Nothing I did would get it to work properly. Once deleted it could not be reinstalled. That previously had been the recommended to fix bugs. I will not play that childish, ridiculous, Scrabble Go. Come on Electronic Arts, honor you contract with thousands of Scrabble users. I absolutely cannot even look at scrabble go without getting furious. Why would anyone in their right mind get rid of a wonderful game and replace it with pathetic nonsense!

The only way to get a real human player is to play your Facebook friends. I had the misfortune of my iPhone crashing just when Scrabble Go launched, so when I tried to download scrabble on my new phone, Scrabble Go was my only app choice.

I pity us all. With apologies for repeating myself, for folks looking for an alternative…. Thank you for opening this forum. I called Hasbro customer service and voiced my disgust, but was not allowed to get connected with someone of decision making authority.

As stated, this is a money making scheme targeting the younger generation. If it were not, what would be the need to scrap the classic app? Hasbro has given us senior citizens the middle finger. Please do the right thing! The current app must be kept for serious players. The new one is classless and immature, with bright lights and reminders. Definitely not for me!!! So happy I found this site!! I am also so upset over this upcoming removal of Scrabble.

I even signed a petition on Change. Like one person put it, it is about money! This childish substitute is ridiculous. Would love to know who was in that meeting and who claimed that this was a great idea! Just awful!! I just want to play scrabble like the original board game. No rewards, flashy coloured lights and silly fake contestants.

Such a shame a good game is ruined by adding unnecessary trivia. My mother and I are two more extremely distraught, long-time Scrabble app players. I have contacted both and sent messages expressing our concerns about the move to Scrabble GO. Feel free to do the same, or perhaps someone wants to start an online petition?

Please bring back Scabble ea and get rid of this mind blowing appalling excuse for what has always been a soothing activity. Scrabble Go is so bad, too much interaction with comic trash. I for one will not continue with this dreadful new format. Just had the obscene experience of opening Scrabble GO for the first time. The app was promptly deleted and will never again grace my iPad. I am inarticulate with disgust. What a profoundly misguided corporate move. There are plenty of silly games out there and one more is not needed.

The world is ending! This is pure lunacy!! The only hit will be in seeing Scrabble GO epically fail and go down like Ancient Rome into a massive dumpster fire of digital jewels!!!! Is there a developer out there who could recreate the classic Scrabble game in an app in a way that is not a copyright infringement??? It must be possible! And ARE the developers reading all of our comments?

How could they not listen to the voices of all of their consumers? I cannot tell you how upset I am. And, for those before, who for whatever reasons, find themselves housebound. Leave the same comments here. I did twice already. They answer politely, sending the same form letter of nothing.

PR Manager jtalen ea. After years of playing digital Scrabble I am angry and appalled at its replacement with Scrabble Go. It is a childlike and irritating version lacking many features of the original. I will continue playing the original version until it expires [ 5th June suggested]. D Day minus one?.

Corporate lunacy and possibly suicide! Thank you. So well said. My sentiments exactly. I play with my 89 year old Mum, across the other side of the country, also with my siblings. No way would any of them use this new app. It is an absolute load of crap and I am deleting it. Makes me angry and sad all at the same time. And they say they have a 4.

As if. How can this be happening! What were the developers thinking when they foisted this abomination upon us? To lure younger players to see their ads? Or at least have two versions. Remember when Coca Cola brought out a new version of Coke? So sad that Scrabble as we knew it is gone. And the senior I play with will never be able to navigate through this new Scrabble Go.

What a mistake this was. But can anyone tell me what was wrong with the real Scrabble the one we are going to lose? Why do this?? Someone work out how we can rise up and demand our grown-up game back again!!

Scrabble was a way that my daughter and I stayed connected everyday. Does anyone know if there is a way to get it back? I love playing scrabble. I play different games with my neighbor at a time. We both look forward to playing in the morning while sipping our coffee and then again before bedtime. It is shocking that it is being removed. It can not be replaced with a childlike game.

To add insult to injury I paid for the Scrabble app. Really mad about this after enjoying for so many years!!!!! Okay, something else is going on with this App. I have noticed that all my suggested players are men with the exception of one really good player, who happens to be a woman. The men like to chat with me. They encourage me to get on other apps so we can get to know each other better.

When I challenge them on this, they either deny it or persist. I just think it is weird and worrisome. Hi, yes you can report it. I have reported stuff to them before just go on the Scopely website and use their contact.

They were very prompt at answering. You can simply put them on mute or block by clicking on their profile and access the cog on the upper right corner. Works beautifully. I do this to block creeps messaging unsavory small talk or to prevent obvious cheaters and bots to request a rematch. We still chat. What do they hope to gain from this? I also agree with all the comments about how dumbed down the game has become but I joined because it was that or nothing — there must be a solution, surely?

I agree that if costs were the issue, then a small subscription would have been a better option. However this would not have satisfied the egos of developers and designers who believe they can improve the original.

The colours make it difficult to see the tiles. The flashing graphics are too distracting. I also miss the easy to read list of games played and in progress. For a game that is obviously designed for and possibly by children, I find it disturbing that some of these ads are for gambling-type games. I feel that they have totally misread their market.

Bring back our game!!! What an excellent article! I have played Scrabble daily for years with friends and family all around the world and love it. I am struggling to play a game on ScrabbleGO amid constant interruptions advertising other games in their repertoire. My only hope is that we will be able to purchase a Scrabble game without all the hideous distractions in the near future. For anyone in here asking what to do…go to the game store and pull up Scrabble Go…at the bottom it allows for reviews and contact to company by email…please send your comments there!

I did both…an email and a review and it went as follows…including their response from some idiot named Wax! Hi there, Lynn. Thanks for sharing your insight and feedback with us about Scrabble GO.

We certainly appreciate all feedback from our players as this will help our development team to improve the game more in the future. Rest assured that your voice and concerns are heard. Should you have other thoughts or feedback in mind, feel free to share it with us.

Do not reply below this line Scopely Support April 09, , Horrific…just horrific! Even worse than New Coke! Absolute codswallop is another term! Will be sad to see a perfectly great game and pastime for many years for millions of people go swirling around the bejewelled toilet bowl!

Dumbing down of the world is complete thanks to you. Saddest regards, L. Scrabble Go is awful! Clearly the makers have no idea of their key demographics. Both of us got lost at least once and it took ages to find our way back to the board. Scrabble Go is a joke!!!!

I purchased The Franklin Mint version 35 years ago, to keep as a collectible. I tried playing Scrabble Go, for approximately 5 minutes. There is no way that I found to set the game level. I tried ScrabbleGo and was hugely disappointed. I am not keen with the games within games, new graphics, prizes, etc.

Hasbro has made a monumental mistake by diluting the Classic Scrabble brand into such a juvenile game. Shame on you! Thanks, Paul!!! I have signed the peition and I hope everyone on this thread does as well. Please share! I can see it is not only us, my boyfriend and I, who are very upset over this childish rendition of the old fashioned scrabble game. English is my second language, and playing scrabble was always a fun way to help learning new words.

I complained a few times to them… at first they replied, now they stopped. So I was thinking…. Send me an email if you have suggestions or ideas or know someone who could make the program. Earlier this week, my friend and I wanted to play Scrabble. It would have been our first game in months.

Needless to say we uninstalled that thing within minutes. I was so happy to read what you guys have written. I felt understand and I could totally relate. Fast-forward a couple of days to Wednesday.

I suddenly had the idea of checking out whether the Steam gaming platform which I only use to play uber violent games such as those of the Myst and Syberia series had Scrabble for sale… and, lo and behold, IT DOES. Only this time, it seems to be from good old Hasbro; not EA though it indicates that the developer is Sperasoft, and the publisher, PopCap. Those of you who like to play solo might like it, though. Sounded promising, Dany. My brother told me about it and we were going to set up a game with our siblings for this weekend.

Thank you for the post and replies. It would be so good to have the true game available right now! Who ever came up with the dumb idea called Scrabble Go should please scrap it as soon as possible.

It is childish and full of trivialities. Taught sons, grandsons. I play everyday. Scrabble Go is a ridiculous substitute for classic Scrabble. It will not surprise me if the Trump family owns a big piece of this new Scrabble abomination. Thanks for your assault on this insult of a game.

It made me feel better. When a New Yorker named James Brunot contacted Butts about mass-producing the game, he readily handed the operation over. Brunot's contributions were significant: he came up with the iconic color scheme pastel pink, baby-blue, indigo and bright red , devised the point bonus for using all seven tiles to make a word, and conceived the name "Scrabble.

When the chairman of Macy's discovered the game on vacation and decided to stock his shelves with it, the game exploded. By , Brunot's homegrown assembly line was churning out more than 2, sets a week. Nearly 4 million Scrabble sets were sold in alone.

Coleco Industries Inc. In , scandal rocked the Scrabblesphere when Hasbro announced plans to remove nearly words deemed too offensive for the official Scrabble dictionary.