Planet Entertainment Says It's "Fully Within Its Rights" To Publish Cooking Mama: Cookstar

Who are they getting this overwhelming positive response from?

You'd think that an official statement would have pristine punctuation, but it seems that's not a priority for them.
Also, what's up with the weirdly high full stops? All of them but the first one are really awkward.

Edit: looking more closely, not all of them are that high up, which makes it even weirder lol

(Sorry, I got a thing for punctuation and grammar lol)

The saga continues!

I figure they are just Patent Trolling rather then providing any real substance. Just sore losers is what I am getting from this.

@Branovices : I know a guy around here...

"in order to protect its customers"
Protect them from what??

There are so many mixed messages and Chinese whispers surrounding this release that I don't know what to believe. Australia seems to be cleaned out of stock in light of all the scandal.

Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if all of this is an elaborate marketing scheme. I take my hat off to them if it is, but what are they going to pull out of their hats the next time they throw together another dud of a game?

It's a shame that IP holders don't give their long-running franchises the TLC that they deserve in order to strengthen the estimation of the brand among the public. Suddenly I want Mama in Smash.

It really feels like Office Create tried to pull the plug when the saw the horrible reviews and Planet want to push the game to get some money back even if it means killing the IP

Why is the author of the article repeating what we're reading in the company's message? What is the reason to say twice the same thing? In what school of journalism is this practice being taught?

Planet’s note reads like fake news. Pay attention to the “facts” such as the mention of “overwhelming positive response” from fans. I haven’t seen a single positive thing said about the game? I call BS and am definitely on Office Create’s side.

I'm still siding with office create.

Not only are they trying to push out a shovelware quality game, but they also tried turning a series that has always been exclusive to Nintendo onto other consoles. That shows how little respect Planet Entertainment has for this IP.

Don't worry guys, Planet said they didn't do anything wrong. Therefore, Office Create loses. /s

It just constantly amazes me that this is the hill Planet is choosing to die on. They're willing to risk their finances, reputation, and legal blowback over one of the worst games on the Switch. Just... Why?

The developer has no rights. It doesn't matter if they did all the work and the publisher doesn't want it - they have no rights.

They can use the work they did to make a new, wholly owned cooking game and publish it - with new IP, new mechanics and new art. Then they own it

This is pretty interesting, I don't think I've ever seen a publisher and developer fight like this. Must be due to very poor sales.

This reads like the fake threats that Jack Thompson and Tim Langdell use to do.

Who are these guys, the Chinese government?

@graysoncharles Maybe, but I don't recall one saying another had no right to make said game after it was made.

I'm curious
Did Nintendo try to cancel the Philips' Zeldas? Not sure if the product quality is reason enough to cancel a license

But Planet Entertainment is probably screwed anyway because of the illegal ps4 version though

This is still going eh?

@graysoncharles The Sega vs Gearbox thing is somewhat similar, but the West/Zampella thing is pretty much how Infinity Ward fell apart because of Activision trying to screw them over and lost it's best talent, which is how Respawn got created. Now a days Infinity Ward is like Bioware and Rare, a shell of it's former self with all the talent that made it famous no longer around.

Well, somebody has got it wrong... who could it be?

Planet Entertainment Says It's "Fully Within Its Rights" To Publish Cooking Mama: Cookstar

I don't know the full behind-the-scenes scoop on this whole debacle, but I'm not buying it.

Planet Entertainment's catalog says more than enough on their project "not meeting expectations" on many fronts, so Office Create is well in the right to swipe back the keys out of the developers' hands. Additionally, Cookstar (from what I heard) was very faulty on many accounts and its Metacritic score (45/100) is proof enough to get the message out to the average consumer, so unless if this game was developed in a parallel dimension of sorts where its reception there was "overwhelmingly positive" I truly don't see or feel any truth to Planet Entertainment's defensive claims in this dumpster fire of a situation. And to top it all off, Planet Entertainment is pushing out a "PS4 version" of sorts, of which Office Create NEVER had on the table concerning Cookstar (and also tells me that the developers are on the homestretch to bankruptcy).

I haven't played the Cooking Mama series myself, but Mama and her family deserved so much better than this.

So, yeah...shut the front door, Planet Entertainment...

This is ridiculous. If the IP holder says "You can't do that"... You can't do that. It's as simple as that. Unless Office Create signed some deceitful contract that allowed the publisher to do whenever they want there's no way that they can legally release the game.

It doesn't matter if you've made the best game in the world, it doesn't matter if what you develop perfectly matches what the IP holder requested or approved, if they say no, that's it. You can't do anything until you get their approval.

They've officially dug their grave

It's no use prevaricating about the bush; Planet Entertainment is 100% done. As soon as they got Office Create's trust, they go and rush the game against OC's wishes and then try to sell it, even going so far as to make an illegal multiplat version. They are done as soon as they go to court, good riddance.

@gloom The overwhelmingly positive response is that they’ve sold every copy they made because it’s sold out on their site. Surely that means that people love it.

In all seriousness though even if they were right I don’t think Nintendo is going to be producing any more cartridges for them.

"Planet is fully within it's rights to publish Cooking Mama: Cookstar."
Did you make Cookie Mama? no, you didn't. you don't have the "rights" to do anything, if the company that owns the IP, thinks the game is a mess. they should removed the game within their rights.

at this point, they are pretty much done. how can you make a comeback after this messy situation? this company should probably never work on a game they don't fully own ever again, especially, if they are gonna add a game on another console without the owner's permission.

@clvr I've got a thing for the use of lol as punctuation

@riChchestM a bit petty but fair 😛

In my defense, though, it's safe to assume an online forum and an official statement require different registers; the former is also prone to easy misunderstandings, so emoticons and "lol's" help clear out possible doubts regarding the intention of the writer.

I didn't wanna sound too pedantic in that first comment, hence the "lol's", but here we go!
Seems I just can't help it 😂

@Cathousemaster What you say makes no sense and I think it's because you are missaunderstanding the whole mess. Office Create is not the developer nor the publisher in this case, they are just the IP owner. Planet Entertainment is the publisher and 1st Playable is the actual developer studio. However this thing is just between Planet Entertainment and Office Create. The developer studio is left in the side lines since they are under Planet Entertainment.

Also gotta say Planet Entertainment is the bad guys here no matter whether they were within their rights or no. They just saw a opportunity to make quick cash and clearly has no respect for the Cooking Mama IP or Office Create.

Here's the thing too many talk as though they know the Contract between the two parties. I would gander those people have no beeping clue of the contract and what it specifically says so unless you do please post it for the rest of us-otherwise sit on your thumb and turn. Regardless if they are the IP owner if they signed the contract that is Legally Binding they can't re-negotiate without the other party being present. That is also why they are also in trouble themselves-otherwise why aren't they talking about the contract. This is what I call smells to high heaven and something else is going on and they are using this as a scapegoat.

@SwitchVogel Aren't you behaving exactly like the people you're making fun of, just taking the other side? I've not seen anything that would lead me to believe one side of the other. It's a contractual dispute and the contract hasn't been made public.

And while I won't disagree that the game is terrible, that's not what the publisher is fighting for here. It is damage control and image management. The exact things you say will happen to them - financial, image, and legal trouble - is exactly why they need to respond. If they remain silent, it is as good as admitting guilt and they receive nothing but bad press. So while I don't have any clue who is to blame here, Planet's response is anything but surprising.

@roadrunner343: And the undercover Planet employee reveals himself

@ShadowSniper7 yeah ok, sure. Good one. Feel free to point me to an article that implies blame on either side and I'll gladly change my thoughts. Until then, why blindly take one side over the other?

@roadrunner343 I totally agree with you and I expected someone to make your points. It's disappointing that so many people form and share opinions without actually knowing the contract.

roadrunner343: I think the review scores for the game tell the rest of the story... I was pretty shocked to see people defend Planet lol

Shockingly, I am not siding with anyone. Office Create churn out the same trite nonsense and milk people, so I never liked them anyway. It's kind of funny if these guys just ignored them tbh, so if anything, at least Planet gave me and my friend a laugh when I chatted about the situation. Not fussed on who sues (or fails to) who on the legal side.

So this is why the prices for this game is stupidly high it seems.

@ShadowSniper7 The review scores have literally nothing to do with the story. If anything, the developer would be more to blame for review scores than the publisher - but regardless, it has no bearing on this dispute.