In our hyper competitive world of on line games, reports are in that Scrabulous has rebranded themselves as word scraper, so all you folks who really wanted to play scrabble type games on Facebook only had to suffer a few days of withdrawal from the game.

On line games are a huge business, they are excellent time wasters, and a good way to reduce stress as well depending on what game you play. Some games can focus errant thoughts, and allow you to “zone” when dealing with bigger issues (tell me you don’t crack open a game of bejeweled and go on autopilot as your brain works on other issues).

Well, word games are just as much fun, but probably more important, if you ever try to teach ESL (English as a Second Language) games like Scrabulous become very important to students and teachers in developing vocabulary and word skills.

The reason for Scrabulous’ extreme makeover has its roots in some pretty gray legal matters: the real problem wasn’t that it ripped off Scrabble, but that it ripped off Scrabble so blatantly. The colors of the board were the same, the list of rules led to a Wikipedia entry for Scrabble rules, and the two names were similar enough for Hasbro to cry foul. Source: Cnet

Further reporting can be found here at the Seattle PI (Thanks John Cook).

In all not surprising to see a rebrand, and this is also something that other casual game makers should be watching if they are making a rip of someone else’s game. There can be only one teritris, but there can be a million variations on the theme. So if you are running around wondering what to do now that Scrabulous is dead, trot on over to word scraper on facebook, and you might have a good time with it.

Tags: Scrabulous, word scraper, rebranding, casual games, game, fun, time waster, brain focus