Author Topic: Cooking Mama: Cookstar  (Read 3212 times)

forgotusername

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Cooking Mama: Cookstar
« on: April 06, 2020, 05:33:04 PM »
Cooking Mama: Cookstar is a game that released a few weeks back by Planet Entertainment on the Nintendo Switch...but if you look for it on the eShop, you won't find it. It was there on March...somethingith (I can't find the proper date now), but vanished a few hours later. Its disappeared from any online stores too, save for Ebay. If you want to risk getting Coronavirus in exchange for a copy, you might be able to find a cartridge in the wild, but your chances are unlikely.

So, what happened here? Theories were circulating that the game was overheating Switches and ruining Switch batteries. But the biggest rumor was that the game was a front for stealing credit card information to turn into Bitcoin - something that wasn't actually that unlikely. The first press release for the game was boasted as using "blockchain technology", something that is mainly used for cryptocurrency. Even Nintendo themselves had no idea why the game was taken down - they just did as Planet told them to.

But in the end, Cookstar's takedown ended up being because, well, the game is a bootleg. The developers *were* working with Office Create/Cooking Mama Ltd. initially; but due to the game's, quite frankly, TERRIBLE quality, the license holders backed out, asking Planet for it to either be heavily polished or canceled entirely. Instead of listening to them, Planet just released it anyway...with a lawsuit being filed mere hours later. So Planet entered panic mode, and removed every mention of the game they could.

I think its also quite clear that Planet knew EXACTLY what they were doing. The game's trailer was unlisted on Youtube, and the game just shadow-released; no pre-orders or anything. This was an intentional bootleg, and I really doubt there was miscommunication here. Its fascinating to see something like this happen, and it really makes you wonder how many similar, completely-buried cases like this there have been over the years...

(and by the way, Cookstar also features a bootleg favorite: an animation of Mama...doing the Gangnam Style dance. yes, really. https://twitter.com/inkopolis/status/1246944015683063809)

KingPepe

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Re: Cooking Mama: Cookstar
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2020, 12:17:19 AM »
I'm... still not entirely sure this falls under being a bootleg exactly. My main issue is it was still technically licensed and it was meant be a proper Cooking Mama game until Office Create backed out themselves. The original game wasn't initially intended to cash in on the franchise behind the creator's backs.

forgotusername

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Re: Cooking Mama: Cookstar
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2020, 02:05:12 AM »
I'm... still not entirely sure this falls under being a bootleg exactly. My main issue is it was still technically licensed and it was meant be a proper Cooking Mama game until Office Create backed out themselves. The original game wasn't initially intended to cash in on the franchise behind the creator's backs.

I would argue its a similar case to Tengen Tetris, which is pretty much universally considered a bootleg. It was technically licensed by whichever Russian organization dealt with Tetris back then, but was under an “arcade” license rather than a console one (which led to its recalling). Though I do understand why you would think otherwise.

guyzis

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Re: Cooking Mama: Cookstar
« Reply #3 on: April 24, 2020, 08:49:55 PM »
Question: do modern console games really count as bootlegs? You said it's for Switch... If that's the case, then maybe we should include the chinese Windows launcher for Android made by moban...

Ankos

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Re: Cooking Mama: Cookstar
« Reply #4 on: April 24, 2020, 10:13:45 PM »
Question: do modern console games really count as bootlegs? You said it's for Switch... If that's the case, then maybe we should include the chinese Windows launcher for Android made by moban...

Based on the Contents/Articles page for the Wiki, stuff that is released for things that don't have much in the way of licensing are excluded from the Wiki. So, I would say that it is not about how old a bootleg is, but rather how it is released. (Assuming that we use the same definition of bootleg on the forums as the one used on the Wiki)
By that logic, Cooking Mama Cookstar would have a much better case for being a bootleg than moban's Windows launcher. If we are going off of Wiki definitions then I don't think Cooking Mama Cookstar counts either though. We tend to only count games that were released without permission from the console manufacturer to launch. Cookstar did not have licensing issues with Nintendo, just the rights holders to the Cooking Mama series. I would say that it falls more in line with stuff like the earliest releases of the Revenge of the Shinobi. It uses copyrighted material without the permission of its owner, but it did get the ok from Nintendo

guyzis

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Re: Cooking Mama: Cookstar
« Reply #5 on: April 24, 2020, 11:32:30 PM »
Oh. But if thats so then moban doesn't have permission to use Microsoft's OS name either.
I say this because there exists an app that is similar to moban Windows in the Play Store called "WinDroid". It references it, yet it isn't named directly. Like these two characters I made up right now: Malío and Liugu. Clearly based off the real Mario Bros.

Also I wonder if moban Windows got official approvement? Because if it did it wouldn't be shared in their official website as an apk file.

Ankos

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Re: Cooking Mama: Cookstar
« Reply #6 on: April 24, 2020, 11:55:53 PM »
Oh. But if thats so then moban doesn't have permission to use Microsoft's OS name either.
I say this because there exists an app that is similar to moban Windows in the Play Store called "WinDroid". It references it, yet it isn't named directly. Like these two characters I made up right now: Malío and Liugu. Clearly based off the real Mario Bros.

Also I wonder if moban Windows got official approvement? Because if it did it wouldn't be shared in their official website as an apk file.

Moban's program does infringe on copyrights, but it is not a game, and was released for a platform that does not have the same sort of licensing requirements as the game consoles we normally talk about here. I agree with you that it is sort of a bootleg, but if we were to include it in the same definition we normally use, then we would also have to consider countless fan games and random programs on the internet as "Bootleg Games" just because they stole an asset here and there