The past few days have been filled with rampant rumors and speculation about Cooking Mama: Cookstar’s Switch release. The game was immediately pulled from the eShop and users claimed that the game was a cryptocurrency miner, overheating Switch units while in use. Fortunately, the cryptocurrency claims were a farce to cause buzz on the internet. In addition, a developer and outlet have come forward to clarify the situation.
First, Cooking Mama: Cookstar was pulled from the Switch eShop due to a legal battle between the publisher, Planet Entertainment, and the IP holder, Office Create. This is due to Planet Entertainment releasing the game against Office Create’s approval as the game needed more polish. The game was under consideration of being cancelled as well. The lack of communication between developer and publisher lead to this situation unfolding recently. The developer explains more in the following excerpt, courtesy of ScreenRant:
At one point the Japanese official create clients came to oversee development. An argument started and the clients were told to go home if they weren’t being “constructive”. Once they found out that planet entertainment released the game, they used their Nintendo contacts to pull it from the e-shop and stop production of cartridges.
Overall, everyone at 1p loves the cooking mama franchise and did their best to make the best product considering the interference from the higher ups. I think the game is far from perfect, but would have done fine without the publishers stumbling so constantly…”
Secondly, the claims about the game being a cryptocurrency miner are false. The game has overheating issues due to the game being made in Unity without as many optimizations as possible. Here’s an official excerpt from the developer:
The statement about crypto-currency was all buzz words. The head of planet entertainment knows very little about these things… he just put some fancy language to get potential investors who like that stuff. As for the crashes/ overheating. That would be because the game is made in unity. By many people working on their first game… it’s not the best product but it made it through several vigorous reviews by Nintendo and Sony. There is no way crypto-mining stuff could get through those tests. I doubt anyone at 1p would even be able to make such a thing.
Unfortunately, the developer states that its unknown whether the game will see an official release on the eShop again. Only time will tell but hopefully the developers see their game reach fans the way it was supposed to. Stay tuned at Final Weapon for the latest gaming news and updates!
