Cooking Mama: Cookstar, the series’ debut on the Switch, experienced a  strange launch that seemed to suggest the game was mining cryptocurrency from players’ consoles (via IGN).

Announced in August 2019, Cooking Mama: Cookstar or Cooking Mama: Coming Home to Mama met with quite a buzz. The game is using Switch motion controls “for an immersive meal prep and cooking experience,” and adds a “Vegetarian” mode for meatless alternatives to recipes. Cooking Mama: Cookstar will also be the “first game to integrate blockchain technology on major consoles,” claimed its press release.

Each copy of the game has a unique ID, which offers the ability to “change expression algorithms for characters, ingredients and cooking methods.” And, players earn “in-game currency (or points, experience, and other items) or earn recognition and certificates” from mini-games, tournaments and promotional events. Finally, private keys on blockchain protocols prevent cheating and duplicating game keys. 

The game is apparently “available now,” but there is no entry for a Cooking Mama game on the European eShop. Cooking Mama: Cookstar did appear on the U.S. eShop momentarily, but it’s now gone without a trace. Regarding physical copies, players can get the game from a few outlets of Target and other third-party sellers through Amazon. So, Amazon and Nintendo have no stocks of the upcoming Cooking Mama game. Weird, isn’t it?

Those who’ve gotten their oven mitts on Cooking Mama: Cookstar have uploaded gameplay and screenshots, and nothing seems to be exceptionally egregious. It looks like a Cooking Mama game. Then, speculation swirled stating that the game was actually mining consoles for cryptocurrency, overheating Switches and draining their batteries.

As the developers we can say with certainty there is no cryptocurrency or data collection or blockchain or anything else shady in the code. The Nintendo Switch is a very safe platform, with none of the data and privacy issues associated with some mobile and PC games.

— 1st Playable (@1stPlayable) April 5, 2020

Well, the GPU of the console isn’t speedy enough to start mining cryptocurrency, so those reports are… rubbish. Additionally, developer 1st Playable denies that there is “cryptocurrency or data collection or blockchain or anything else shady in the code” of Cooking Mama: Cookstar. When prompted about the game’s press release that referred to these terms, “blockchain was never brought up to us developers, and we were entertained to hear about [it] in late 2019.”

It appears that the rumours began to rumble in the wake of a “frustrating” distribution situation, and the addition of blockchain technology into a Cooking Mama game got imaginations firing on all cylinders. We’ll update you as news progresses on Cookstar’s strange launch. 

Cooking Mama: Cookstar is available for the Nintendo Switch.