This article originally ran under a different banner/website in April of 2020 and is now being here re-uploaded for purposes of convenience and consolidation. Please enjoy.
As the raindrops rattled against my window, I wondered how I was going to keep my head above the encroaching water. The virus had swept through this God-forsaken town like a locust swarm. Work for a detective had vanished just as quickly as the masks did. I can’t say I was surprised there weren’t any video game-related cases. The publishers knew it was time to keep their heads down and focus on getting what content they could out the door. Things were looking bad for your old Detective Doomsayer. I had to sell my broom closest of an apartment and move into my office. By day, my desk would be covered in newspapers I use to find cases, but by night, I cover that desk in a ratty tried sheet and try to catch some z’s. I wondered how long I could keep up this charade; until that one day I received a suspicious lead call.
“Hello, is this the Detective Doomsayer?” a muffled deep voice that was commonly used to hide their voice said.
“It depends,” I fired back, “If you’re looking for money, then I can tell you he’s not here.”
“No, I am looking for a detective,” the voice said, “I have a case that needs solving.”
“Look, kid,” I angrily fired back, “I don’t have time for your phone call pranks. Unless you have serious work, I suggest you don’t call this number again.”
“I am very much serious, and I can prove it,” the flustered voice said, “check under your door.”
Annoyed, I walked over to my door. I opened the door expecting the old flaming dog shit in a bag trick, but I found a manila envelope. Curiously but cautiously, I opened the envelope. To my surprise, it was stuffed to the brim with cash. Enough to keep me afloat for a couple of months.
“Alright,” I said to the mysterious benefactor, “you have my attention. What do you want?”
“Just so we are clear,” the mysterious voice said, “that’s the first half of the money. You find what I am looking for and you will receive the second half.”
“You still haven’t said what you are looking for,” I retorted, “how do I know you’re not sending me on a wild goose chase that could get me killed, or worse infected with the virus?”
“I need you to locate a video game,” the mysterious voice said, “that is your specialty after all?”
“Could you be more specific? Last year, Steam reported there were thirty thousand games on their platform, and they’re just the largest games distributor on PC. You have me looking for a needle in a haystack if you say you’re just looking for a game.”
“COOKING MAMA: COOKSTAR!” the annoyed voice yelled, “I need to figure out what happened to Cooking Mama: Cookstar. It was on the Nintendo Eshop and then an hour later it was gone. I have to have Cooking Mama: Cookstar; do you understand me?”
“Ok, ok,” I said as I tried to calm the voice down, “I can find out what happened to your Cooking Mama game. Is there anything you can tell me about the game?”
“Cooking Mama: Cookstar went up on the Nintendo Eshop on March 31, 2020, but a few hours later it disappeared. Rumors are flying around about my precious Cooking Mama game being used to mine bitcoin and steal personal information, but I just know my Mama wouldn’t dare do such a thing.”
Oh boy, I thought, a fan of the series who believes the Reddit rumors.
“I am sure they are just rumors,” I said in an even tone to the hysterical voice, “If I were a betting man, I bet the publishers are just having issues distributing the game. With the virus, it has been hard for publishers to make physical copies of games. Even though a good chunk of people digitally download games, a large portion still prefers physical copies. That’s pretty much why The Last of Us Part 2 has been delayed.”
“I just want to know that my Cooking Mama is ok,” the voice said in a concerned tone.
“Well you’re in luck,” I said reassuringly, “there hasn’t been much need for a detective with my skillset, so I have plenty of time to figure out what happened to marvelous Mama.”
“Thank you, thank you so much,” they said before coughing and deepening their voice to sound serious, “We will be in touch.”
As they hung up the phone, I immediately began looking up the who’s who in this game of who pulled Cooking Mama: Coockstar from stores. 1st Player Productions were the developers, Planet Entertainment, a sub-branch of Planet Digital Partners, were the publishers and Office Create are the rights holders to Cooking Mama. According to Wikipedia, the franchise has sold over 12 million copies worldwide in 2009. Pretty impressive for a cooking simulator game. Nothing stuck out to me until I stumbled upon a now-deleted post from Planet Entertainment saying the following:
“Be one of the first three games in Planet Digital’s portfolio that is funded by Digital preferred shares. Planet Digital will democratize game funding for investors, who for the first time ever can own equity in a portfolio of console games. We are using blockchain to add new innovative gameplay that investors can now have equity in. Putting aspects of Cooking Mama on-chain will take the user experience to a whole new level, reinvigorate a popular game franchise that many grew up with and give investors an opportunity to make handsome returns, through a digital preferred share offering.”
-Planet Entertainment in a 2019 post
To a rookie detective, that might seem like all the evidence to incriminate the old Mama for the crime of using Switches to mine bitcoin, but I wasn’t sold. Frankly, that whole statement seems like a honeypot, meant to swindle the least-tech-savvy investor out of their money. The statement had more fluff than a Cooking Mama plush doll. The blockchain could refer to anything and the chances of the game being used to mine bitcoin seemed unlikely. Not only is the Nintendo Switch not powerful enough to effectively mine bitcoin, but Nintendo also vets games that go on their systems for malware. All around the statement just seemed to be an overeager marketing director casting a line and hoping to hook a whale.
Also seems like they were hoping to use blockchain as a form of digital rights manager (DRM), as stated in Planet Digital Partners press release:
“Cooking Mama will also feature private-key enabled balanced DRM – traditional DRM limits the ability to copy games, while private-keys on blockchain protocols allows easy registration. These combined items provide greater proof of ownership to legitimate owners of a game, while also allowing them to resell games both digitally and in traditional retail outlets.”
-Planet Digital Partners press release
The thought of using publishers using blockchain as DRM made my skin crawl. DRM is frequently weaponized by publishers in the attempt to stop people from pirating their games. Unfortunately, DRM often causes games to have terrible performance for paying customers, while within a couple of days, pirates would be able to crack the DRM. Ultimately, defeating the purpose of the DRM while inconveniencing paying customers. The blockchain DRM would explain the terrible performance that many outlets reported. If the DRM had remained in the game. Many users began combing through the game’s coding and had found no traces of blockchain or bitcoin mining within Cooking Mama: Cookstar.
So what could be causing the game’s terrible performance? Well Cooking Mama: Cookstar is running on the Unity engine. While many despise this engine as it is commonly used to run games with stolen art assets commonly known as Asset flips, the engine is cheap yet flexible. From Hollow Knight to Hearthstone, the engine never did get the credit it rightfully deserved. However, the Unity engine does have one quirk: in the hands of less experienced developers, it can have some terrible performance issues. If let’s say some blockchain was added in but taken out cause the developers knew Nintendo would never allow it, it could cause the engine to have a fit, if not properly dealt with. The pieces seemed to be falling into place.
However, a poorly running game is not enough to get yourself pulled from the Nintendo Eshop. I have seen some funny glitches with Nintendo’s 1,2, Switch and I doubt that gets pulled from the Eshop. No, still a couple of pieces missing from this puzzle. Thankfully, a developer at 1st Player Production spoke with Screen Rant and shed some light on the situation:
“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.”
-Anonymous Developer
The anonymous developer confirmed my suspicions about the blockchain statement from Planet Entertainment being a siren call for foolish investors. While they don’t confirm blockchain was in Cooking Mama: Cookstar, the Unity engine appears to be the culprit being the technical issues, but what about the game being pulled from the Nintendo Eshop. Well, it turns out there was trouble in paradise between the rights holders and the publishers:
“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…”
-Anonymous Developer
The developer would continue in the article to mention how Planet Entertainment was planning to sue right holders Office Creates for loss of revenue. I also stumbled across another article saying Office Creates plans to sue Planet Entertainment over the whole mess. Sounds like Mama is going to be spending a lot of time in court, and I highly doubt we will see Cooking Mama: Cookstar or any Cooking Mama game ever again.
The next day, the mysterious voice called me. I gave them the low down on the whole story. They seemed a bit overly concerned over a game IGN gave a three too. It felt like somebody who was more than a casual fan of Cooking Mama. Concerned I was about to get stiffed for the second half of the money they promised, I asked when I would expect the second half of the money.
“Go check your door now,” they bellowed. Bewildered, I walked over to the door and a second manila envelope was waiting for me. To my dismay, it contained the same amount of money as the first envelope.
“I hope it is to your liking?” the voice asked.
Lost for words, I said the only thing that came to mind:
“Just who the hell are you?”
“Don’t worry about it,” the voice replied, “Mama is going to fix everything.”
With a click of the phone, they were gone. I never heard from the voice for the rest of my time in this God-forsaken town.
Sources:
Batchelor, James. “Cooking Mama IP Holder Taking Legal Action against Cookstar Publisher Planet Entertainment.” GamesIndustry.biz, 15 April 2020, www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-04-15-cooking-mama-ip-holder-taking-legal-action-against-cookstar-dev-planet-entertainment.
Doolan, Liam. “Cooking Mama For Switch Will Feature A Vegetarian Mode And Blockchain Tech.” Nintendo Life, 11 Aug. 2019, www.nintendolife.com/news/2019/08/cooking_mama_for_switch_will_feature_a_vegetarian_mode_and_blockchain_tech.
Teuton, Christopher. “Cooking Mama: Cookstar’s Owner Is Taking Legal Action Against Its Publisher.” ScreenRant, Screen Rant, 15 Apr. 2020, https://screenrant.com/cooking-mama-cookstar-controversy-office-create-planet-entertainment/.
Teuton, Christopher. “EXCLUSIVE: Developer Speaks Out About Cooking Mama Cookstar Switch EShop Controversy.” ScreenRant, Screen Rant, 6 Apr. 2020, https://screenrant.com/cooking-mama-cookstar-switch-eshop-controversy-crypto-mining/.
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