Online Scrabble Competitions

FUN Technologies Inc., one of the world’s leading online casual gaming providers, today announced it has signed a North American licensing deal with the Hasbro Properties Group (HPG), the intellectual property development arm of Hasbro, Inc., to develop SCRABBLE Cubes, a 3-D word game based on the classic crossword game. Players will be able to compete in a variety of tournaments for cash on FUN’s WorldWinner and SkillJam sites, with a collective audience of 27 million gamers. Also, tens of millions of additional gamers can compete in SCRABBLE Cubes via FUN’s partner sites, including GSN.com, AOL Games, MSN Games, Pogo, Real Networks and Virgin Games.

SCRABBLE Cubes is a 3-D word game, in which players connect letters across the surface of an ever-changing arrangement of cubes to find as many words as they can. The game will feature SCRABBLE tiles with corresponding point values, giving wordsmiths everywhere the opportunity to compete in a modern version of their favorite word game for cash and prizes. Adding to the challenge, players are tempted with bonus cubes containing special values, such as “double word score” or “double letter score,” as in the popular SCRABBLE board game.

“This relationship with Hasbro is another example of FUN’s strategy to enhance our games portfolio with branded titles in response to player demand,” said Lorne Abony, CEO of FUN Technologies. “Through deals with leading consumer brands, like Hasbro, we’re making online cash play more mainstream by introducing the masses to the concept of competing in tournaments in the traditional games they played growing up.”

SCRABBLE Cubes will be available on WorldWinner.com, SkillJam.com, and all of FUN’s partner sites in Q3 2006.

[tags]scrabble,msn games,fun,online competition,skilljam,virgin games,gsn.com,aol games,pogo,real networks[/tags]