Popular Scrabble rip-off, Words with Friends, turns eight this week and what better way to celebrate than to plan a TV show centred around the game.
Yeah, that’s right, Zynga and MGM Television are teaming up to develop a Words with Friends game show and all I can ask is why? Turns out it’s just a thing everyone’s doing now because hey, they’ve already done it with fucking Candy Crush.
For those who have never played, the mobile game is essentially a digitised version of Scrabble, pitting two human players against each other to make the most points possible by spelling out words with a collection of 7 random letters.
Since its launch in 2009, Words with Friends has been downloaded more than 200 million times, making it one of Apple‘s top 10 free games of all time.
“The interactive social experience of Words With Friends makes it the perfect mobile game for us to bring to primetime, following our success with Beat Shazam on FOX,” said Barry Poznick, president of unscripted television at MGM. “Playing WORDS is a daily ritual for some of the biggest names in Hollywood and we’ve created the perfect format to capture their competitiveness and creative wordplay.”
Zynga also recently partnered with Facebook to launch the game on their Messenger service’s Instant Games feature.
“We’re proud to partner with MGM, an industry leader in creating innovative and engaging programming, to extend the iconic gameplay and rich social experience of Words With Friends, and our broader collection of With Friends games, to new mainstream entertainment mediums,” said Bernard Kim, Zynga‘s president of publishing.
The big question is, will the show be any good? Hmmmmmm… Nah.
Source: VentureBeat.
Photo: Words With Friends.
