Cooking Mama Delisted from Nintendo EShop After a Crypto Mining Controversy

In a baffling collection of tweets over the weekend, games journalist Ryan Brown revealed that the 2019 release of Cooking Mama for the Switch appears – strongly appears – to be loaded with a cryptominer, which would mean that as long it was on your system your Switch’s processing power would be diverted to helping the publisher mine for cryptocurrency.

Further investigation found this untrue, but the game has since been delisted from the Nintendo eShop.

So here’s the details, as I understand them: back in August of 2019, the publisher behind Cooking Mama, Planet Digital Partners, announced that they were integrating blockchain technology into a Cooking Mama game on the Switch, but they didn’t exactly detail what that integration would do outside adding “new innovative gameplay that investors can now have equity in”. It seems most people didn’t pay much attention to this tidbit until now.

Ryan was able to reach out the developers on the issue, and got a quote on the issue as well, although it’s nothing short of an ardent denial:
 

“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.”

As for how they could claim that when an earlier press release confirmed the use of Blockchain in Cooking Mama, they followed up:
 

“This is a release from Feb 2019, and we presume hypothetical like most releases about blockchain are. Blockchain was never brought up to us developers, and we were entertained to hear about in late 2019. Not happening anytime soon.”

Data mining seems to confirm that while there aren’t any cryptominers in the Cooking Mama game, the code does suggest it was inserted into the game and then later removed, which is why it’s so poorly optimized. It also appears to be the work of the publishers, since the developers don’t seem to know about the situation.

In either case, the whole twitter thread is well worth a read. It's like the world's least consequential conspiracy.