Dear Reader:
Cooking Mama: Cookstar dev says the game was pulled from the eShop due to a legal dispute, game was released against the IP holder's will
Well, well, well...we finally have some details on what's going on with Cooking Mama: Cookstar, and it's not pretty. A member of the dev team contacted Screenrant to share major details on the situation, and it seems a legal battle is the cause for the game's removal from the Switch eShop, along with the scarcity of the physical copies. You can check out the full message from the dev member below.
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.
There is a legal battle between the publisher, planet entertainment and the ip holder, office create. Planet entertainment released the game against a request by office create to keep polishing the game, or perhaps even canceling it.
At one point the japanese office create clients came to oversee development. An argument started and the clients were told to go home if they weren't being "constuctive". 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...
..We were told the game was coming out in March. That's all anyone knew. The boss at 1p, tobi, keeps that kind of thing to herself mostly stating she doesn't want to stress us with the details... Advertising was blocked by office create too. There were youtube ads, websites, and even tik tok ads that never came out." The future of Cooking Mama: Cookstar remains uncertain, as the developer ended by saying "As I understand planet entertainment is sueing office create having it removed for money lost. It's hard to say if it will ever be released properly."
Thanks to Andreslop24 for the heads up!