You’ve probably heard all about it, but just in case you haven’t, Cooking Mama: Cookstar (the recent Nintendo Switch release) was quickly pulled from the Nintendo eShop and removed from stores after release. At first it was thought that this was due to the game mining cryptocurrency before it was then discovered that the game was pulled because the Cooking Mama rights holders did not authorise its release (in the state that it did release).
Weeks after this drama started going down, Office Create has taken to its Twitter account to post a statement about the matter. The statement does in fact confirm that Planet Entertainment (the developer) released the game without Office Create’s approval due to the fact that it did not meet the standards that customers expect and deserve. Planet Entertainment went against the wishes of Office Create to continue further polishing the game and released the game anyways.
The weird thing is that the statement also references that it doesn’t know anything bout an upcoming PS4 release of the game. At the time of this article being written, there’s still listings for the PS4 version of the game on EB Games, JB Hi-Fi and Big W (yes, Big W of all places). It’s due for release on April 28th, but I honestly have no idea if it’ll release or not at this point.
You can read the full statement below:
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.