Inside the Cooking Mama drama behind one of the world's most wholesome games

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Cooking Mama? More like Cooking Drama

Cooking Mama
(Image credit: Office Create)

The creator of the Cooking Mama series has revealed it is taking legal action against the developer of Cooking Mama: Cookstar due to licensing issues. 

Potentially marking the end of the Cooking Mama drama, the cooking sim's original developer Office Create has issued a statement that details what's happened between it and fellow Cooking Mama developer Planet Entertainment, which worked on the slightly questionable Cooking Mama: Cookstar in 2020.

To catch you up, Japanese studio Office Create has been the main developer of the Cooking Mama series (as well as its spinoffs Gardening Mama, Babysitting Mama, etc.) since it started way back in 2006. In 2020, Office Create gave developer Planet Entertainment the rights to Mama and her cooking techniques, so the US-based studio developed Cooking Mama: Cookstar for the Nintendo Switch, and later, the PS4.

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However, things soured pretty quickly between the two developers after the release of Cooking Mama: Cookstar. According to a statement released by Office Create back in 2020, the developer canceled Cooking Mama: Cookstar due to quality concerns, but Planet Entertainment went ahead and released the game on multiple platforms without permission anyway. This resulted in Office Create threatening to sue the other studio, and now in 2022, things have officially boiled over. 

In a new statement, issued by Office Create on November 17, 2022, the developer thanked fans for their continued support and updated them on the legal proceedings against Planet Entertainment. 

The statement reads (translated by DeepL): "Planet Entertainment LLC released the Nintendo Switch version of 'Cooking Mama: Cookstar', which did not meet the quality standards approved by [Office Create]." "In addition, in the US and Europe, the Company began advertising the sale of the Sony PlayStation 4 version of Cooking Mama: Cookstar, which [Office Create] had not authorized in the license agreement in the first place."

In response to this, Office Create "filed arbitration proceedings in the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce" against Planet Entertainment and its CEO, Steve Grossman. As of October 3, 2022, the ICC Arbitration Court issued its final award which concluded that Office Create's intellectual property rights had been infringed. It also ordered Grossman to pay damages as well as "prohibit any and all acts that misrepresent their association with [Office Create]." 

"In order to protect our important asset, the Cooking Mama series, and to ensure that our customers enjoy them," the statement finishes, "we are taking all legal action to remove Cooking Mama: Cookstar, manufactured and sold by Planet, from the market." So if you're currently in possession of Cooking Mama: Cookstar, it's about to become a much more lucrative item in your collection. 

Suddenly miss playing Cooking Mama? Take more of a trip down memory lane with our best DS games list. 

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.