Significantly worse than Mama.
So, chances are you’ve heard of the hullabaloo surrounding Cooking Mama: Cookstar. But for a refresher: the game was released last week onto the eShop, then very quickly pulled. Moreover, those that downloaded and played it found that playing it undocked tended to drain their Switch battery. And this is where things get interesting.
Back when the dev, 1st Playable, unveiled it, there was mention of blockchain tech in the game. Which immediately spurred the rumors that it was removed due to that blockchain tech. A rumor which the dev denies:
As the developers we can say with certainty there is no cryptocurrency or data collection or blockchain or anything else shady in the code. The Nintendo Switch is a very safe platform, with none of the data and privacy issues associated with some mobile and PC games. This is a release from Feb 2019, and we presume hypothetical like most releases about blockchain are. Blockchain was never brought up to us developers, and we were entertained to hear about in late 2019. Not happening anytime soon.
Of course, dataminers immediately took that as a challenge. Though, admittedly, this should all be taken with a grain of salt:
Also, that it used music ripped directly from YouTube:
That said, recently, one of the developers spoke to ScreenRant, dismissing some of these claims:
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.
Basically, according to the developer, the crashes and overheating are down to inexperienced devs and Unity being itself. the developer went on:
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 cancelling it. 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…”
Basically, the whole thing seems to be a massive, godawful mess, top to bottom. But even then, it’s still not done; Planet Digital seems intent on suing the IP holder, Office Create, over lost earnings, which may mean the game never actually comes out digitally.
That said, the official Twitter account still put this out:
Criminy, what a mess.
Source: Nintendo Life
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