Somebody else owns the Silent Hill website domain now

It’s no secret by now that Konami doesn’t care about Silent Hill anymore. The cancellation of Hideo Kojima’s Silent Hills was just the tip of the iceberg; the series seems stuck in cameo appearance hell right now, and a recent bit of news makes it clear how poorly Konami is managing the IP. Apparently, Konami let the Silent Hill website domain expire — and didn’t bother renewing it before someone else bought it up.

If you go to silenthill.com right now, you’ll be greeted to a mostly blank website with just a screenshot of a recent Tweet by Masahiro Ito. The Tweet explains Ito’s frustrations with how the iconic character Pyramid Head has been misused over the years.

This doesn’t appear to be a malicious attempt to capitalize on the Silent Hill domain. But the situation highlights just how uncaring Konami is with its beloved horror license.

Why did this happen?

As of writing, we don’t know who purchased the Silent Hill domain or what their motivations were. We do know that when Konami’s license to the domain previously expired, it went up for sale for just under $10,000 USD. Whoever snagged it this time seemingly immediately replaced the website with the basic page you see now.

We can only speculate on why they’d do this, but one theory that seems likely is protest. With Ito’s inflammatory words on full display, this person might simply be criticizing the way Konami is handling Silent Hill. The oversaturation of Pyramid Head is just one example of this.

We’ve heard rumors that Konami does have plans for multiple Silent Hill games in the future, including one in works at Kojima Productions. But given Konami’s recent commitment to NFTs, it’s safe to say the company is neck deep in hot water.

The history of the Silent Hill domain

The funniest thing is that this isn’t the first time Konami’s let the Silent Hill domain expire. Looking at the site on the Wayback Machine, you can see how the site was barely updated in its first few years of operation, then seemed to exist in a state of perpetual limbo. It wasn’t until 2021 that the most recent official version of the website was seemingly published, featuring — you guessed it — Pyramid Head.

So could Konami get the domain back? It’s possible, but they’d have to either purchase the rights to the domain or take legal action. There’s precedence for both; a lot of big corporations failed to snag their now-recognizable domains in the 90s and then had to bargain or sue to claim them. Konami likely wouldn’t take the owner to court in this case as there’s no real basis for intellectual property theft. If Konami cares enough at all to get the domain back, it’ll likely go the “buy them out” path.

If you’re nostalgic for the old Silent Hill websites, though, fear not. The people at Town of Silent Hill have archived copies of multiple Silent Hill sites available online. You can check them out here. Be warned; the sites are old and certain elements may not work properly anymore.

Via PC Gamer.