Culinary saga concludes.
Over the last year, Cooking Mama: Cookstar has been thrown into doubt. There seems to be an end to this dispute. Sadly, Cooking Mama: Cookstar is going out of print. Apparently Office Create’s legal battle with Cookstar publisher Planet Entertainment is over.
In 2020, Planet Entertainment released Cookstar for the Switch without Office Create’s approval – a move for which Office Create revoked Cooking Mama’s license. However, Planet sold the game and even released a PS4 version.
Planet sued Office Create over it, and the international court ruled the game infringed on its trademark. They’ve removed the game from digital and physical stores.
This is the deal: Cooking Mama owns Cookstar, which owns Office Create. The game wasn’t up to standards, according to Office Create. Apparently Office Create told Planet to fix the issues and resubmit, but Planet just released the game anyway on the eShop. A developer, 1st Playable, also worked on it. Still, it’s off official websites and elsewhere.
The initial launch of Cookstar was a mess, with some official sources saying it was on the eShop when it wasn’t, retailers being unable to get retail copies, especially in Europe, and no PS4 release announced.
Cooking Mama: Cookstar
Previously, there were problems with trailers, release dates, websites, and background cryptocurrency mining. Even though we don’t know how or why any of those instances happened, a rogue developer releasing something without permission and a license holder trying to walk it back might explain at least some of it.
You’re not alone if that makes your eggs scrambled. In the end, this lawsuit doesn’t seem to clarify anything. Also, we haven’t heard much from Planet Entertainment – our attempts to contact them last year went unanswered, and I tried again for this piece and got bounced. It’s pretty thin, but the publisher released a statement last year. Despite admitting there were some “creative differences” in Cookstar, Planet insisted that it is within its rights to publish it and that “there is no active litigation preventing Planet from doing so.”
There’s one thing we know: Cooking Mama: Cookstar is a weird game with a lot of unanswered questions. In a few days, it might disappear from retail too (at the time of this piece, it was still available on Amazon and Walmart).
There’s a relatively similar-looking cooking game by Planet Entertainment called Yum Yum Cookstar that just released for Xbox and Switch. 1st Playable developed it, too. In the meantime, the new Cooking Mama game, called Cooking Mama: Cuisine, just hit Apple Arcade! Still, if you want a copy of Cooking Mama: Cookstar before it goes away forever, maybe don’t worry: our reviewer called it a “stale, undercooked simulator.”
