Cooking Mama: Cookstar appears to be such a rancid recipe that it's been served with a lawsuit by Office Create, the holder of the Cooking Mama IP. Office Create says it rescinded Planet Entertainment's rights to use the IP after Cookstar turned out to be undercooked, but that Planet Entertainment disregarded this and served up the lackluster dish anyway.
If you haven't been following the drama, here's a quick summary. Cooking Mama: Cookstar was released in March 2020 and was quickly beset by issues, being removed from the Nintendo eShop shortly after its release. IP holder Office Create alleged that Cookstar creator Planet Entertainment "failed to meet the standards" of the IP with Cookstar, and summarily requested that Planet fix these issues.
Planet fired back with its own statement and released Cooking Mama: Cookstar anyway, despite the quality issues pointed out by Office Create. This was done without Office Create's approval as well. Unsurprisingly, the game went on to receive pretty poor reviews, with Office Create subsequently describing the release of the game as "unauthorized".
Now, per the official Office Create website (via Nintendo Life), Office Create has successfully sued Planet Entertainment over Cooking Mama: Cookstar. According to Office Create, the International Court of Arbitration found in favor of the studio, declaring that Planet was "not authorized" to release Cooking Mama: Cookstar for Switch and PS4 in 2020 and 2021.
The court further found that Office Create's termination of the licensing agreement was valid and that Cookstar effectively represents an infringement of the Cooking Mama trademark. Naturally, sales of the game now must be completely halted, and Office Create says it's working to remove all digital and physical copies of Cookstar from the market. Sounds like it's about to get much harder to find the game, although judging by its critical reception, you probably don't want to.
This isn't the first time IP creators or holders have sued companies making games for that IP. Back in April this year, a lawsuit by two of the creators of the tabletop IP Paranoia was filed against publisher Nacon over a delisted video game, for example. Copyright lawsuits are also far from rare in the gaming industry, with companies like Take-Two and Bandai Namco chasing copyright suits against modders or creators on YouTube and other sites.
Even still, this lawsuit, while not entirely unique, is certainly an unusual one. It's fairly rare that a game turns out to be of such poor quality that an IP holder decides they want it taken down from the market, then sues the developer responsible when said studio fails to comply. Hopefully, this will lead to better Cooking Mama products in the future.
