Office Create Taking Action Against the Unauthorized Release of Cooking Mama: Cookstar - News

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Cooking Mama: Cookstar, the latest entry in the Cooking Mama series, was recently released for the Nintendo Switch. The game was published by Planet Entertainment and developed by 1st Playable Productions.

Cooking Mama series creator and IP holder Office Create has now issued a statement saying the release of the game was unauthorized.

In the statement Office Create says they licensed out the Cooking Mama IP to Planet Entertainment in August 2018 to develop Cooking Mama: Cookstar for the Nintendo Switch. However, the quality of the game failed to meet the standards set by previous entries in the franchise. Planet Entertainment was contractually obligated to fix the issues with the game and resubmit the game for Office Create’s approval, but they did not do this and released the game instead. 

Office Create has also discovered Planet Entertainment and/or its European distributor has been promoting a PlayStation 4 version of the game. Office Create did not license Planet Entertainment to develop any Cooking Mama games for the PlayStation 4. 

On March 30, 2020 Office Create ended the license deal with Planet Entertainment due to the breach in contract. Despite this Planet Entertainment continues to promote and sell Cooking Mama: Cookstar on its website.

Read the full statement from Office Create below:

Re: Unauthorized Release of Cooking Mama: Cookstar by Planet Entertainment LLC

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.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

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