Thedramatic sagaaround theCooking Mama: Cookstarjust got a little more heated, as publisher Planet Entertainment and rights-holder Office Create both took their grievances public — with the latter threatening legal action.
The situation began whenCooking Mama: Cookstar, which was released in late March for Nintendo Switch, was unexpectedly pulled from Nintendo’s eShop and physical copies disappeared from store shelves. The move immediately sparked rumors, including a theory that the game was secretly mining currency using players’ consoles.
Planet Entertainmentquickly shotthat rumor down.
But the drama escalated on Wednesday, April 15, when Office Createpublished a statementsaying that the company had rejected Planet Entertainment’s build of the game due to “deficiencies affecting the overall feel, quality and content of the game.”
Office Create slammed the game’s release as “unauthorized.”
“Despite being contractually obligated to correct the identified deficiencies and resubmit the corrected game for Office Create’s approval, Planet proceeded to releaseCooking Mama: Cookstarwithout addressing all of the rejections and without Office Create’s approval,” Office Create said in its statement.
The rights-holder disavowed a supposed PS4 version of the game that it claimed was being promoted for launch in Europe.
Office Create added the company is “evaluating all legal action against Planet to protect our customers, intellectual property rights and the Cooking Mama series.”
Planet Entertainmenttook to Twitterto tell its side of the story, saying that Office Create had approved the game design in 2019, and that the published version “followed the exact approved design.”
“Unfortunately creative differences arose asCooking Mama Cookstarwas near completion that were outside the scope of our agreement and the game design approved by office create,” Planet Create said, adding that it is “fully within its rights to publishCooking Mama Cookstar.”
