Majesco Hits Facebook With Bananagrams

Majesco's getting on board the Facebook game craze with Bananagrams, an anagram game hitting the social networking site for free on August 18th.

The game starts you off with a batch of selected tiles, and then players have to make up as many words as possible, as quickly as they can, from the available letters. Friends can compete against one another live, and the person to use up all his or her tiles first is the winner.

Facebook users can play alone or with up to eight friends at a time. The single-player mode provides a timed race for users to try and beat their own best time.

Full announcement after the jump:

Hasbro Sues Over Scrabulous Facebook Game

Hasbro is suing the creators of the popular Scrabulous Facebook game, after a request the toy company made to the social network earlier this year to pull the game went unanswered.

In January when Hasbro first began to fuss about Scrabulous, many were perplexed — wasn't the prolific Facebook board game an homage to the original, arguably even a sort of viral marketing? But today's infringement suit announcement comes just after Electronic Arts, through its partnership with Hasbro, launched its own official Scrabble game on Facebook, a launch no doubt complicated by the existence of an unlicensed, competing game.

Hasbro says Scrabulous infringes on its intellectual property rights, and is suing creators Rajat Agarwalla and Jayant Agarwalla, while requesting that Facebook pull the application immediately.

Full announcement follows the jump.

EA Brings Scrabble To Facebook, Pogo

You now have two more ways to get your online Scrabble fix, as EA and Hasbro have announced the release of Scrabble on Pogo.com with a Facebook app to hit the social networking site later this month. Wait, you say, I'm already enjoying Scrabble via Facebook, Kotaku! No, that's Scrabulous, an unofficial Scrabble clone that Hasbro attempted to have pulled. It's still up.

Regardless you can play the Pogo.com version, should have you have the patience for it. As much as we'd like to impress the Scrabble bot AI with our vocabulary, we're probably going to pass in favor of reading the press release for the third time. It's full of words!

So, one of the things you do in Washington is have lunch with people who were once friends but now go by the title "colleagues." And if you can discuss something that involves both of your jobs, you then walk down to the IRS and give 'em a big ole fanger because you get to write off the lunch. Which probably knocks 20 cents off my tax bill, but what the hell.

Yesterday, the very same thing happened. I was "lunching" with a "colleague" from my AP days, she works for CNN now, and of course she mentioned the John McCain Facebook app "Pork Invaders." In it, you maneuver your Campaign Yard Sign back and forth, firing off vetoes at the flying pigs who spend taxpayers' money and hurl heathen inverted crosses at you (it's the subtle imagery that appeals to the conservative Christian base). Complete a level and get a fun fact about the candidate. And a perpetual come-on to sign up for another Facebook app. God, I love it when with-it parents try to get hip with the kids. How is this not a top 20 app?!

Owen's Facebook App Determines Which GTA Star You Are

Hey, Facebookers! Ever wondered which Grand Theft Auto protagonist is most like you? Probably not, but if you're wondering how a lily white nerd like me could find his virtual equivalent to be star of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories, Victor Vance, maybe then you'll try out weekend editor Owen Good's Facebook app "Which Grand Theft Auto Character Are You?" It's quite revealing, as I always thought of myself as a street dog vendor or TW@ internet cafe employee and this is the sort of stuff I take as gospel. Mr. Good has promised, as a sort of concession for my Kotaku-style app pimpage, that all flaming be directed in his direction.

Which Grand Theft Auto Character Are You? [Facebook]

You may remember Threewave Software best for the original "Capture The Flag" Quake mod. These days, the studio's known for developing the multiplayer component of several major titles, most recently Touchstone's Turok and EA's Army of Two, and is currently developing the multiplayer for Activision's upcoming Wolfenstein title.

As you may have noticed, many of the devs to which we turn for our hardcore fix seem to be making full-tilt sprints for social networks like Facebook and the casual space. In today's ultra high-risk game development environment, Threewave also thought it'd be prudent to get on the burgeoning social media train, founding Gnosis Games, a casual subdivision with titles like Paparazzi, which according to the studio is a chart-topper on RealArcade, Gamehouse and other casual portals.

Now, Threewave's Gnosis has turned to Facebook. In this case, though, there's a surprising and interesting ulterior motive that's more in line with the hardcore audience than you might guess.

Former Sony Entertainment President Chris Deering has recently dished out two pieces of fascinating gossip about Sony development for those interested in the "woulda, coulda, shoulda" points in the company's history. The first such program was a social networking platform for the PSOne ala Facebook or MySpace.

We had a secret test program in Europe back in 1997 on PSOne, running a black and white text-based, moderator-led community chat group with a special box called 'Net-Station' that hooked up PCs to the TV. Nick Parker ran it. The project codename was 'Moccasin 5'. I have no idea where it came from.

New EA Division Going For Games and Networking

EA has apparently decided to throw some of its best minds (like former Electronic Arts Los Angeles general manager Neil Young and director of artist and repertoire for Electronic Arts Alan Yu) behind a new division called 'EA Blueprint.' The point of the division? To help out smaller developers and get games — both extensions of existing EA franchises as well as new IP — out on various platforms, with a strong emphasis on social networking platforms like Facebook. They've tried something like this before, though not on such a scale:

Blueprint games will leverage the growing online communities of social networks—to use Facebook, for example, as a pipeline to consumers. Young tried something vaguely similar with 2001's Majestic, a title that connected with gamers with the title's story through e-mail, AIM, phone, online, and fax. The subscription-based game was discontinued less than a year after its launch due to limited consumer interest.

Sources say talent agency Creative Artists Agency is also participating in the efforts of Blueprint, contributing its substantial resources of talent as well as its connections with funding sources to ramp up the division's output.

I guess this means we have more crap to look forward to in Facebook news feeds and application requests. Joy! More announcements about this secretive little division will be made at a later date, but it looks like quite a lot of talent and funding are going towards a segment of the market that is getting increasing attention from both inside and outside the industry.

Stealth EA Division Creating Games—Social Net Mash-up [Gametap]

Hasbro, the makers of the word game Scrabble, have asked Facebook to remove its popular online take on the game, Scrabulous because of copyright infringement.

"Letters have been sent to Facebook in the United States regarding the Scrabulous application," said a Mattel spokeswoman in Britain.

"Mattel values its intellectual property and actively protects its brands and trademarks.

"As Mattel owns the rights to the Scrabble trademark outside the United States and Canada, we are currently reviewing our position regarding other countries."

Hmm, while it may seem silly, I believe Scrabble is an entirely original game, as in it's not one of these throw-offs of games created in the middle ages or ancient china. I wonder if they makers of Scrabulous can get away with a name change only?

Facebook Asked to Remove 'Scrabulous' [NYT]

Facebook Games Are Popular, Much Like Facebook

Moore Aims EA's Space Lasers at ESPN, Nike, Facebook and MySpace

We apologize. It's only rumor that EA is in possession of gigantic space lasers. However, if EA were in possession of said space lasers, Peter Moore would be aiming them straight at big sports business entities like ESPN and Nike, and community entities like MySpace and Facebook.

There is a great opportunity to take EA Sports and turn it into a general sports brand that can compete not only with Take-Two and Konami and the other usual suspects in the videogame world...[but also] to look at ourselves in a different way and compete with the likes of Nike and ESPN to win the hearts and minds of a very desirable demographic group, which is the 14-to-34-year-old male worldwide.

Gaming Makes MySpace and YouTube Its Bitch

"Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities," James Kuai, a research analyst at Parks Associates, said in a prepared statement.