Cooking Mama Owners Claim Unauthorized Use Of Character In Latest Game

In what has become 2020’s biggest gaming drama, the saga of Cooking Mama: Cookstar continues to unfurl.

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No, no, no – don’t break the contract!

In what has become 2020’s biggest gaming drama, the saga of Cooking Mama: Cookstar continues to unfurl. After what seemed like a pretty definitive conclusion last weekend, capped off by the game’s publisher selling copies directly to consumers, license holders Office Create have made a public statement.

Office Create, the original developer behind Cooking Mama, has accused Cookstar publisher Planet Entertainment of violating their contract. They have, in essence, accused Planet of publishing an unlicensed game featuring an unapproved use of their mascot character. In addition, they’ve publicly denounced the PlayStation 4 port of the game, stating that Planet was never given the greenlight for that release.

We’ve included the statement below.

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 goes on to state they are pursuing immediate legal action against Planet Entertainment.

What Office Create is saying, effectively, is that Cooking Mama: Cookstar is now an unauthorized use of their intellectual property. This means that they are leveraging that Cookstar is, in colloquial terms, a bootleg game from here on out. They’re also stating that the PlayStation 4 game is either vaporware or made deliberately without the permission of the publisher.

Suffice it to say – these are very serious allegations. Sources I’ve talked to via email and read via last weekend’s ScreenRant piece have had conflicting reports about the relationship between Office Create, Planet Entertainment, and 1st Playable. It’s been described as complicated by some, and downright hostile by others. At present, without an actual copy of the agreements between Planet and Office Create, nor public statements from the opposing parties, it’s almost impossible to make a judgment call on this.

Looking at what we know, however, we can piece together a narrative. Planet Entertainment, based in Connecticut, was licensed to make a Cooking Mama game for the Nintendo Switch. They tasked 1st Playable, a Syracuse-based developer who’s worked with companies like Disney and Viacom, to make the game. During development, Office Create became dissatisfied with the quality of the title – by some reports, aggressively so. Somewhere along the line, Planet put out the Switch version of the game, only for Office Create to use their Nintendo contacts to pull the title. After this point, Planet took it upon themselves to sell the game directly to consumers. Those are the facts so far – or at least, the public ones.

At this point, it’s impossible to really suss out the truth. Obviously, we can all draw our own conclusions based on the information we’ve been given, but at this rate it’s hard to tell if there’s even a side to take in this whole thing. But whatever the case may be, one thing is for certain – this is an unfortunate position for all the folks at 1st Playable to be placed in, and a damn shame for Cooking Mama fans the world over.

We’ll keep you posted on any updates.

Link Source : https://www.thegamer.com/cooking-mama-cookstar-office-create-planet-entertainment-lawsuit/