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As someone who throughly enjoys the Cooking Mama series, even I couldn’t have predicted the level of attention that the latest game would come to receive. They say in show business that any publicity is good publicity, but in this case that particular axiom might not prove to be true. In the few weeks since Cooking Mama: Cookstar was released, the game was available in the eShop for a few hours before being pulled, was subsequently accused of mining cryptocurrency (later disproven), and then became available in physical form directly from the publisher’s website only to see its price drop days later from $59.99 to $39.99. For the full story hit this link and this one.
So, that’s a lot of drama for a game about snapping pics of digital grilled cheese, right? Well, as some of you might have noticed reading our previous reports of this debacle, the website ScreenRant had published an interview with an anonymous source who claimed to have been part of the development of Cookstar. In that interview, the source alleged that 1st Playable had a negative interaction with Cooking Mama IP-holder Office Create over the quality of the development of Cookstar. Here’s what was described:
“At one point the japanese official create clients came to oversee development. An argument started and the clients were told to go home if they weren’t being ‘constuctive’ [sic]. Once they found out that planet entertainment released the game, they used their nintendo contacts to pull it from the e-shop and stop production of cartridges.”
In yet the latest development of this story, Office Create has finally issued an official statement regarding the situation surrounding Cookstar. While the statement doesn’t confirm, deny, or even acknowledge the story told to ScreenRant, it’s certainly in keeping with the spirit of the alleged interaction. Here is the statement in full from Office Create:
April 15, 2020
Office Create Corp.We would like to thank our fans and customers for their support over the years for the Cooking Mama franchise. As many of you know, Planet Entertainment LLC (Headquarters: Connecticut, USA; “Planet”) recently released “Cooking Mama: Cookstar” for sale in the U.S., Europe and Australia. This was an unauthorized release in breach of Planet’s contract with Office Create.
In August 2018, Office Create licensed Planet to develop the Cooking Mama: Cookstar game for Nintendo Switch™. Unfortunately, the quality of the game builds failed to meet the standards that our customers expect and deserve. Office Create rejected a wide range of deficiencies affecting the overall feel, quality and content of the game. Yet, despite being contractually obligated to correct the identified deficiencies and resubmit the corrected game for Office Create’s approval, Planet proceeded to release Cooking Mama: Cookstar without addressing all of the rejections and without Office Create’s approval.
We have also learned that Planet and/or its European distributor has been promoting an upcoming European release of a PS4™ version of Cooking Mama: Cookstar. Office Create has not licensed Planet (or any other entity) to create any Cooking Mama games for PS4™. Office Create itself has not been involved in the development of any PS4™ Cooking Mama game.
On March 30, 2020 Office Create notified Planet of its immediate termination of the license due to Planet’s intentional material breach of the license contract. Despite such notice, Planet continues to advertise and sell the unauthorized version of Cooking Mama: Cookstar on its website in willful violation of Office Create’s rights. To date, Planet has not confirmed the status of the unauthorized PS4™ version.
Office Create is evaluating all legal action against Planet to protect our customers, intellectual property rights and the Cooking Mama series. In the meantime, we thank our customers and loyal Cooking Mama fans for their continued support and sincerely regret any confusion and disappointment that has been caused by Planet’s conduct.
In yet another interesting twist, as of this writing the physical copies of Cookstar are sold out on the official website with the following banner emblazoned atop the page:
April 15 is tomorrow, but given what Office Creates has stated, it’s unknown whether or not these physical copies will again be available for sale We’ve reached out to Planet Entertainment for its response to Office Create’s statement and will update this story if/when we hear anything. What do you think of this whole situation? Share with us below and on social media!
Source: Office Create Press Release
