Hoping to make a comeback with that 365-point quixotry play in Scrabulous? US and Canadian Facebook users were likely dismayed to find out this week that Scrabulous has been disabled. The region-specific lock likely has to do with Hasbro's license for all Scrabble video games, which is for US and Canada only (Mattel owns the rights for the rest of the world). In the interim, you can always play the official Scrabble Facebook app care of Electronic Arts, although it lacks the panache of the seemingly now-defunct Scrabulous.

[Thanks, Andrew B]

Electronic Arts is looking to take on the biggest Scrabble clone on Facebook with -- what else? -- an officially licensed version of Scrabble. A free online edition of of the bombastic board game is available now on Pogo, with a Facebook version coming "later this month," according a press release. The application would go up against reigning champ Scrabulous, which despite litigation threats is still alive and kicking.

The press release also confirmed that "many more Hasbro game properties in development and slated to launch on social networking sites later this year." Boggle knockoffs, beware!

Stepping into Electronic Arts' "EA3" event last week, we made a beeline for ... Hasbro Family Game Night, passing up the likes of Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Mercenaries 2, and Tiger Woods Golf 2009: Busted Knee Edition along the way. We know, we know. But who can resist the lure of Battleship, Connect Four, Yahtzee, Boggle, Sorry and its new sibling Sorry Sliders? (Answer: you maybe; not us.)

Electronic Arts has finally revealed the fruits of its recent partnership with board game evangelist Hasbro, announcing Hasbro Family Game Night, a collection of classic board games for the Wii and PlayStation 2. Shipping this fall, the game will include a wide assortment of Hasbro properties -- six in all -- from Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, and Connect Four to Sorry! and its more recent incarnation in Sorry! Sliders.

Purists will be happy to know that they'll be able to play the classic games as they remember, though EA notes that new versions will also be included as well for those looking for a different way to play. In addition, the collection will let players build and decorate a virtual game room, earn trophies, and play various mini-games once they tire of sinking each other's battleships. However, even with support for between two and four players, we doubt the compilation will have us tossing out our boxed favorites just yet, though at least with this game we know we'll never have to go searching though couch cushions for missing pieces before we can play.

When the power goes out on Joystiq's mid-Atlantic hoverbase, we often use Monopoly to pass the time, or at least we did until we realized that every game ended after four hours with the board being flipped and somebody (usually Chris) getting punched in the face. This morning, EA announced that we wouldn't have to wait for an outage to start throwing fists: The company will bring the real-estate game to Xbox 360, Wii and PS2 this fall.

This is apparently a sped-up version of the original game, with some new interactive minigames thrown in. We hope we can use waggle to hammer eviction notices to the doors of our slums. But that's just us. Oh, and just so we can cut this discussion off at the pass: No, there's no PS3 version announced. We trust PS3 owners can scrounge up $12.99, directions to their local Toys 'R' Us and a tabletop without our aid.

Every other week Scott Jon Siegel contributes Off the Grid, a column about card games, board games, and everything else non-digital.

Risk: Black Ops is one of the most beautiful board games you'll never play. In anticipation of the newly updated release of Risk, Hasbro produced only 1,000 copies of this special edition game, distributing them to bloggers, journos, and gaming hobby sites for perusal and easy publicity.

The response was unanimously positive. The updates to the rules -- handled by Risk 2010 designer Rob Daviau -- lower the game's initial barrier to entry, and make it possible to play through in under two hours (which is significant for Risk). Most media attention, however, was lavished on the slick, modern redesign, devised under the command of art director Lindsay Braun and visual designer Jason Taylor.

Risk has always wanted to be taken seriously, but Black Ops is the first version of the game to look deadly serious. A matte black finish on the box is accented by imagery of barbed wire, dog tags, and the faintest hint of blood spatter, all rendered in a subtle gray. "History is written by the victors," the box declares in a modest sans-serif font. The game board itself is designed to look like something out of our modern war-rooms, with a visual style not unlike Introversion's apocalyptic strategy game Defcon. This is not the Risk you remember.

The official Scrabble Facebook application has recently launched, but don't expect the Scrabulous boys to be shaking in their word-savvy boots anytime soon. Copyright issues prevent the game from being played in the US and Canada, and numerous game-breaking bugs make it only slightly more playable everywhere else.

The region-locking is due to the confusing state of Scrabble's international copyright. In the majority of the world, toy manufacturer Mattel owns the rights to the game, but in North America, that honor goes to Hasbro. Everything would be honky dory with the Facebook version, except that EA already has an agreement with Hasbro to distribute digital versions of their titles, which the RealNetworks-developed Facebook app would be in breach of if Scrabble were playable in North America.

Fortunately, North Americans apparently aren't missing much: the game is currently suffering from the "beta blues", with its woefully-small user base already up in arms on the discussion boards over some usability issues, as well as the system's penchant for deleting in-progress games. Nothing beats the real thing, right?

[Via Purple Pawn]

When word broke earlier this month of an expansion to Sony and Wizards of the Coast's fourth wall-breaking PlayStation 3 card game, Eye of Judgment, few details were offered save for a promise of more cards and a rather ambiguous spring release. Now Sony has nailed down a specific date, March 27, for the 100-card expansion's debut, as well as let loose a number of details surrounding just what players can expect from the new set once they get over that intoxicating 'new card smell.'

While the additions are numerous, the most interesting bit concerns how exactly the new cards will be made available to players, as it turns out that Sony will double dip into the wallets of those who wish to try out the new cards first hand. According to the PlayStation.Blog, before being able to use any new cards purchased from the new set, the expansion will first require players to pay for a download from PlayStation Network, adding new artwork, animations, and rules for game's second set of cards.

We still don't know exactly how much this download will run, though the set's boosters and theme decks will continue to carry the normal asking price of $3.99 and $14.99 respectively. If there is a silver lining to be taken from this news however, it's that even those players who choose not invest in the new expansion will be able to play against those that do, no doubt excellent news for players who decide to stand strong against the tides of capitalism alongside their army of Biolith ninjas.

We're happy to hear that Sony hasn't given up on their augmented reality collectible card game, Eye of Judgment. Co-publisher Wizards of the Coast is already printing the first expansion for the PS3-compatible card series, due this spring.

PS3 Fanboy has an exclusive look at one of the new cards, with more cards and details over at Sony's official Playstation blog. There were distribution problems with the first set of EOJ boosters, with gamers having a hard time finding cards in their local shops, as well as rampant card copying making it easier to cheat in online matches. Let's hope Sony and Wizards have plugged up the piracy problems with set 2, as well as made the real things easier to find.

Read - First card revealed from the upcoming Eye of Judgment expansion [PS3 Fanboy]
Read - Hot Off THE EYE OF JUDGMENT Card Press: Set 2 [Playstation.Blog]

Normally, we wouldn't care too much about NERF N-Strike on the Wii, one of many titles in development following EA and Hasbro's lucrative partnership. But our ears definitely perked up when we heard that the title will ship with a specially designed blaster controller, which will perform double-duty as a standard Wii gun peripheral, and as a functional, dart-firing NERF gun.

Shacknews provides an image of the sweet blaster, seen above. According to EA's press release, the game will feature single and multiplayer gameplay focused around "NERF mayhem." Honestly, we're expecting a run-of-the-mill Wii mini-game shooting title, but we're probably going to buy it anyway. After all, this run-of-the-mill Wii game comes with a NERF gun.

[Via Wii Fanboy]

When we first caught wind of the games made possible by EA's newly inked deal with Hasbro, well ... at first we cringed at the thought of Monopoly over EA's POGO service (some games will make you more violent), then we wondered aloud where the G.I. Joe announcement was. With a live-action movie debuting next year, the opportunity to exploit our nostalgia could just as easily take a two-pronged offensive with the release of a game based on the license. But, alas, there was no mention in their announcement ...

Hollywood trade pub Variety reports "Numerous sources said that EA will release a game in conjunction with Paramount's 2009 summer tentpole" and that an "EA rep confirmed that the publisher has interactive rights to G.I. Joe as part of its overall deal with Hasbro, but declined to comment on any specific game plans." [Update: An EA spokesperson just confirmed with Joystiq that their "agreement with Hasbro does include the digital rights to GI Joe."

Well, now we know ...

[image credit]

Electronic Arts has sewn up the rights to deliver games based on numerous Hasbro properties, though before you get too excited in hopes that you'll soon be revisiting your past and playing games based on G.I. Joe, we should note that of this "initial slate" of brands singled out by the companies not one packs a 'kung fu grip.' EA calls these games "new ways for families to build relationships through digital entertainment," which of course means we'll be seeing at least some of these games crop up on the Wii.

With 2.3 million active users, Scrabulous has become the Facebook application of choice for linguaphiles and procrastinators unlike. Unfortunately for its many, many fans, Scrabble publisher Hasbro has become a bit grumpy over the success of the free, unofficial clone of its bestselling game. CNN's Fortune blog reports that Hasbro's been trying to pull the plug, requesting that the web and Facebook versions of the clone be removed.

Hasbro owns all distribution rights for Scrabble in the United States. Mattel, who owns the rights for all other parts of the world, has only recently joined in the fight, placing further pressure on Scrabulous' developers, who are based out of Calcutta.

At the moment, EA currently has a contract deal with Hasbro to develop and distribute digital versions of its games, including Scrabble. One commenter on CNN's post, who claims to represent Hasbro, stated that EA is currently developing a digital version of Scrabble, and that Scrabulous' execution raised heads after being strikingly similar to the version in production. Whether or not this is true, we hope that some sort of agreement can be reached that can keep the Facebook app afloat.

Read - "Will someone please start a Facebook group to save Scrabulous?" [CNN Fortune]
Read - "Facebook asked by Mattel to remove Scrabulous" [CNet]

Electronic Arts knows a thing or two about having a "monopoly," now they own the rights to it. A partnership between EA and Hasbro gives both companies the rights to dabble in each other's pool. EA gains "exclusive worldwide rights" to create games based on Hasbro products like Monopoly, Scrabble, Nerf, Yahtzee and basically anything else you probably remember from childhood. Hasbro will be able to make toys based on EA properties -- darn, we might actually pay for Spore mix and match figures if they make them. The deal runs until the end of 2013, with an option for another four years.

The partnership is part of the newly formed EA Casual Entertainment strategy. A whole division of EA fully focused on bringing high-end casual games to the mass market. This partnership may be a good thing for EA. Actually, they're the perfect company to handle putting games that haven't changed in a half-century on consoles, they've practically been doing the same thing with the Madden franchise for years.

Hasbro has announced a collaboration with Sony Computer Entertainment that will see the toy maker produce trading cards for the PlayStation 3's upcoming camera-based card battler, Eye of Judgment. No stranger to tabletop games, thanks to its Wizards of the Coast subsidiary and Magic: The Gathering series, Hasbro has agreed to create, manufacture and distribute all the cards used in the PS3 game.

Eye of Judgment promises to take tabletop gaming in an elaborate (and surely more expensive) direction by adding the PlayStation Eye camera and a video game console to the normal process of lining up cards and having paper monsters clobber each other with increasingly obscure statistics. Instead of using your boring, standard definition imagination to envision the excitement, the PS3 will scan the cards and generate 3D models of the creatures in play.

Of course, it doesn't sound as exciting when you put it like that, so be thankful for Sony's Phil Harrison having stored up a whole deck of hyperbole trap cards. "The Eye of Judgment represents a totally new genre in gaming," says the corporate executive. "Combining Hasbro's clear market leadership in trading card games with the immense power of PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Eye, is a powerful formula that will result in a revolutionary video game experience that will amaze and engage gamers around the world."