A Shot of Orange Juice (the Blog)

(Some reading if you aren’t up to date on what Scrabulous is)

I’d like to welcome you to the club. Almost three years ago I went through the exact same thing that you did. Anguish that all your hard work and coding could crumble down to a sledgehammer of the system. I’d like to commend you for holding out past the threats of legal action until there was actually a lawsuit against you. That is quite gutsy. At the time, I was poor and didn’t have any means, or even a quality job to be able to manage the threat. That’s right. Their lawyers scared me off with the C&D.

I’d like to say, from my view as a developer, that I know plenty of people who played Scrabulous like it was WoW and it only grew in strength and popularity. You guys did one hell of a job. I don’t know if your reasonings were the same. I was merely trying to keep my mind active, and spread my enthusiasm for a game I liked, as well as learn the new APIs that was google maps. I’m sure it’s a bit easier for you guys to not be harrassed by the legal teams here in the US, and I request that you fight as hard as you are able for those of us who are unable.

I’d like to say, if you are able, push them to buy you out. You may not want to, but it’s better than being worried about your code and everything. It’s about time they start spending their own resources on producing things about classic titles, instead of trying to shut anything down that looks remotely like it.

Good luck to you both, and anyone else not on the team that lends a hand. Maybe the public outcry will be greater as you have had more time in the limelight than I had. In any event, keep the products coming. I know I’ve been lax with the things being produced here at ASoOJ, but I do have two products that are on the back burner, that get some time here and then. But keep at it. My clash with Hasbro may have ended one project, but it was able to catapult my career.

Maybe with enough force from projects like yours and mine, old companies like Hasbro will have to wake up and enter the age where the rest of us are.

–TehDiplomat, www.ashotoforangejuice.com

Posted on July 29th, 2008 by tehdiplomat
Filed under: games, life