Scrabble glitch frustrates online players

Fans of the official Scrabble game on Facebook were left frustrated on Friday after a problem left the application unavailable for several hours.

Scrabble blamed the shutdown, which left wordsmiths frozen on the front loading screen, on a change made to the Facebook platform.

Garrett Link, general manager at RealNetworks - which owns the international digital rights to Scrabble - said on the game's discussion boards that the game was down "due to a change on the Facebook platform that took place about 4 hours ago which is preventing Scrabble to communicate with Facebook."

When the game made its return at 8pm in the UK, Garrett Link posted: "We're back up now! Enjoy. Sorry for the downtime. The internet is a fickle place."

Players of the official Scrabble game have encountered a few technical issues since launch.

Last week in the US, players were unable to play the game with Electronic Arts - the company that handles digital versions of the board game in the US - blaming a "malicious attack" by hackers.

The latest problems with the official Scrabble Worldwide game, which has 71,681 monthly active users on Facebook, have left players angry.

One Facebook member wrote: "Unreliable, erratic and error-strewn. The application rarely opens first time, a fault with forcing wins against non-playing opponents means they get the win and the statistics page seems to reflect the last game only.

For an "official" version, this looks as though it was thrown together in a rush. Very, VERY disappointing: professional developers working for the manufacturers should have done a lot better. I'm afraid Scrabulous is a far superior product."

Facebook members in the US and Canada can no longer use the Scrabulous application on the popular social networking site but UK members still have access.

Do you still play Scrabulous or do you prefer the official Scrabble game? Have your say in the Web User forums.

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