EA makes a scrabbled egg of the official Scrabble app

It's hard to imagine but EA has managed to cheese off a significant portion of the massive Scrabble app community since taking over the reins in May.

The worst of it is that players' Scrabble app histories have been wiped, reported the BBC - some being years old. The dictionary has also changed from Chambers (Christian Donlan tells me Chambers, for years, was the official Scrabble dictionary) to Collins (which he had less kind things to say about). Also, boards no longer refresh after a turn.

Previous owner Mattel apologised but said the changes meant people could play in six languages now, customise their boards and, you lucky things, pay for an ad-free version. The result? Apparently more people are playing - and paying?

"Who wants to play it in six languages?" retorted player Helen Hawkins to the BBC.

"I've been playing for over four years, I had 5000 games on my statistics, I'd won 71 per cent of them, I had my best scores recorded - and now it's all lost."

Her outrage is far from isolated - the Facebook page for the Scrabble app is awash with harsh criticism of the update. But rather than address fans' concerns, the Scrabble app Facebook page ploughs on seemingly oblivious, posting adverts for its game.

"Stop these silly photos and sort out the game," demanded Thomas Superdad Macrazy (what a fabulous name) 20 hours ago - a comment that has 238 Likes.

"The scrabble moment when u realise how only pure arrogance can fly in the face of such overwhelming opposition to the new format.. and STILL you just give the lot of us The Finger! Aw well!" an exasperated Andrea Appleyard wrote - a comment that garnered 300 Likes.

James Bradley got right to the point: "We really hate the new game, please bring back the old one." And he bagged 357 Likes.

EA couldn't be reached by the BBC for comment but Mattel could.

"We are sorry we weren't able to please everybody," a spokesperson said.

"The number of people playing has also increased significantly since the update.

"We produce the board game but we're not experts in electronics."