Latest Cooking Mama Game Was An Unauthorized Release, Say Creators

[BUtterfield 8 41,251]

The creator of the Cooking Mamagames says it pulled the plug on the latest game, Cooking Mama: Cookstar, over quality concerns. Except the publisher went ahead and released it anyway.

Controversy has been swirling around Cooking Mama: Cookstarever since it temporarily went up for sale on the Nintendo Switch eShop at the end of March only to vanish again hours later, as first detailed in a report by IGN. News of hard-to-find physical copies, followed by rumors about illicit cryptocurrency software running in the background of Cookstar, made for a bizarre mystery around the seventh game in the niche cooking simulation series. Now Office Create, the Japanese company that created and owns the series, says Cookstar was an “unauthorized” release.

“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,” the company wrote on its website. “This was an unauthorized release in breach of Planet’s contract with Office Create.”

Office Create went on to say that it licensed Planet to make the game for Switch in 2018, but only if it met a certain level of quality. To develop the game, Planet went to 1st Playable, a studio in Troy, New York known for making education games. The finished game apparently didn’t meet Office Create’s quality threshold, but Planet went ahead and tried to release it anyway. “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,” the company writes. “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.”

Office Creates says an upcoming PS4 version of the game was also not part of the agreement—Cooking Mama games have traditionally only appeared on Nintendo platforms and smartphones—and that it’s “evaluating all legal action against Planet to protect our customers, intellectual property rights and the Cooking Mama series.”

Planet Entertainment, 1st Playable, and Office Create did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

https://kotaku.com/latest-cooking-mama-game-was-an-unauthorized-release-s-1842879660?utm_campaign=Kotaku&utm_content=1586963962&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_source=facebook

[Jill 29,652]

I'm sure Obama is to blame.

[ShayCristoforo 10,592]

My brother and I still say "EVEN BETTA' THAN MAMA" to each other 

[GagaUnderYou 4,976]

Crazy, was going to pick this one up for Nintendo Switch. I still have the Wii Game used to play it all the time.