The creators of Cooking Mama are pursuing legal action after it was revealed their latest Cookstar game on the Nintendo Switch was released too early by its developers.
In a statement on their website, franchise owners Office Create claim developers Planet Entertainment made an “unauthorized release” of Cookstar, resulting in a wide sales confusion early April. They also claim the negative reviews were part of the developer’s accountability and went against Office Create’s suggestions.
“Unfortunately, the quality of the game builds failed to meet the standards that our customers expect and deserve,” wrote Office Creates, adding the developes released Cookstar when it wasn’t ready.
“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.”
Critics including IGN have given the latest game scalding hot reviews, claiming it was underdeveloped while its mini games felt repetitive and flat.
The owners later addressed the game’s premature release across European retailers for a nonexistent PS4 version and stated there was only development for the Switch. It also added to a wave of speculation around Cookstar‘s takedown from stores, with players claiming they were hacked for bitcoin and suffered issues with their Switch systems.
Before March, Office Creates sent a letter outlining the breaches in their contract while terminating their privileges to use the Cooking Mama license from the chain of events.
The company is looking to take steps for legal proceeding “to protect our customers, intellectual property rights and the Cooking Mama series.”
Update at 5:30PM: Planet Entertainment has released a response to Office Creates, stating many of Cookstar‘s designs were approved and suggested from Office Creates while creative differences arose during development. The studio added it had full rights to publish the game without litigations keeping them from doing so.
You can view their full statement here:
