Konami officially removes permission for Shaun M Jooste’s Silent Hill novels

The day has finally arrived when we can release information pertaining to author Shaun M Jooste’s Silent Hill novels. While he believed he had permission from Konami and local representatives, this ‘permission’ has now been removed. The company want to have a new beginning with the Silent Hill brand, which means starting a new slate and protecting the I.P. at all costs.

That’s the short summary of what happened. In the article below, we’ll break down the details of the discussions we’ve had with Konami, why the permission was removed, and what Shaun and we plan to do with the series going forward.

The original permission for Silent Hill novels

Let’s start at the beginning, as many of you reading this today don’t know the backstory. Those who know us well, know we love a good backstory. The only difference from past articles on this matter is that we’ll include screenshots/extracts from some discussions, which we refused to do before.

The initial request

Shaun Jooste, the author of the Silent Hill novels, originally made the request to write novels inspired by the games in early 2012. The exact request to the Konami support team was as follows:

“Hi there. Who may I speak to about obtaining a licence to write Silent Hill stories or books? I am an author (www.freewebs.com/shadowolfd) and a big SH fan, and would like to write SH

stories.”

The request was made via an online form, whereby ticket number #2012071010002863 was recorded. 

Redirection to Ster Kinekor

On 10 July 2012, Konami reported back to Shaun, indicating that he needs to speak to the local distributors in South Africa regarding requests for licensing. Here is the exact response:

“Thank you for contacting the Konami Customer Support.

Regrettably you´ve reached a technical support for problems with our products and we cannot assist you in this matter. Also we have no access to distributional and licence matters. We

would suggest to use the official way in form of contacting our distributor for South Africa and to ask them, if they can provide you with some further information.

At the official Konami website you may learn that the official distributor for South Africa is “SterKinekor Games” ( http://uk.games.konami-europe.com/distribution_territories.html).

We hope, this helps.

Your Konami Support Team”

Permission granted

On 11 July 2012, Shaun emailed Ster Kinekor, which is a massive theatre and entertainment brand in South Africa. Everyone here knows who they are, as people usually go watch the latest movies at the cinemas that they own. The request was repeated, indicating that Konami had directed him to them.

One of the Ster Kinekor employees (we’ll keep his name out of this) wrote back on 16 July, indicating that “SKE is the distributer of Konami games in South Africa” and asked to clarify the request.

On the same day, Shaun replied:

“I would like to write books and stories based in Silent Hill, with the Silent Hill name. My own stories in silent Hill that is very much like the games. I would just like permission or a licence to write the stories.”

On 18 July 2012, the SK representative for Konami licensing said,”

“Good afternoon. Regarding your below email. It is bit challenging to say. In principal it should not be a problem. The only real concern is if you depict the brand in a negative or poor light, i.e. depict the brand in derogatory or unprofessional manor.”

After confirming that Shaun is a massive fan of the series and would never bring Silent Hill into a poor light, he then proceeded to make plans for the book series, believing he had the required ‘permission’. No one seemed to care at that point what the did with his books at that point.

In retrospect and after discussions with Konami, it should have been obvious that Shaun didn’t have the right permission. But there was no way of knowing that back then. As far as Shaun was concerned, they gave him permission.

Publishing Silent Hill: Betrayal

It was in 2016 that Shaun Jooste finally released Silent Hill: Betrayal, the first of seven planned books. He announced it on his website and shared it on social media to make sure the entire world knew about it. When Celenic Earth Publications was established in 2017, we became the official publisher of the Silent Hill novels.

Own I.P., Konami and Ster Kinekor not involved

The email on this discussion is lost now, but it’s still burned in Shaun’s memory. Sometime after the launch of Silent Hill: Betrayal, Shaun had asked Ster Kinekor if they or Konami would be involved in letting everyone know about the novel. The new SK representative that replaced the former one indicated that the Silent Hill novels were Shaun’s intellectual property. Therefore, they would not get involved.

Fortunately, Konami UK was liking and sharing Shaun’s tweets about the novel at that time, further cementing that he had their approval in his mind.

Working on Silent Hill: Obversion

Since Silent Hill: Betrayal was met with such success, Shaun continued working on Silent Hill: Obversion, the second book in the series. In 2021, he indicated that he was putting as much energy into the novel as possible while writing for a living.

Announcing the full Boatman Saga

When Konami finally made announcements about the renewal of the Silent Hill franchise with a remake, new games, and a movie, Shaun knew it was the right time to get done with the second book. He announced the complete Boatman Saga with all seven books, showing renewed interest in completing the novels.

Sadly, he didn’t know making these announcements would be the downfall of the Silent Hill novels.

We even went as far as making a Silent Hill Retrospective series of articles that included his book, and a video to accompany it.

Permission for Silent Hill novels removed

Now, we’re at the part we’re sure many of you are actually here for. When sharing this with some of our closest friends and Silent Hill fans, they all wanted to know why. Here’s the explanation you’ve been waiting for.

The initial investigation

On 2 November 2022, about a month after Shaun made the announcement of the 7 Silent Hill novels, a Konami UK representative emailed him. It discussed whether he had a license to use the SH brand, and if that evidence could be shared.

While we still have these emails, we prefer not to share screenshots of the discussions at this point to prevent any legal action from Konami. All we want to do is share why the permission was investigated and the permission removed.

Results of the investigation

Shaun responded with the evidence as requested. The representative then informed him that he would send the evidence of the permission and screenshots to the Japanese Konami Headquarters. 

On 10 November, the UK representative replied with the results of the investigation. Here’s a summary of what was presented:

• The Konami support team was wrong to redirect Shaun to Ster Kinekor, and for that, they took full responsibility (i.e., they would not take legal action, as it was their mistake)
• Ster Kinekor had no authority to grant Shaun permission to use the license, despite being an official distributor of games and licenses as per the original email in 2012.
• Konami doesn’t feel the Ster Kinekor email was sufficient evidence of permission granted

Requesting an official license for all Silent Hill novels

From there, the UK representative was really helpful. He shared with Shaun how to get the proper license, with forms and documents to complete. Not wasting time, Shaun completed the forms and sent them the very next day. The representative said the forms looked good, and sent them to the Japanese HQ. Shaun and the representative kept in touch on LinkedIn to discuss any updates.

Request denied: why the license wasn’t approved

On 3 January 2023, the Konami UK representative returned to Shaun. He indicated that the Japanese HQ did not approve the continued permission for the Silent Hill novels. To put it in their words:

“This is mainly because they are setting out the long-term strategic plan for the SH brand, and at the moment, the stories you have and have planned don’t fit in with this direction.

However, the team will keep considering it, and if there is an opportunity to make these a part of the plan, then they will review, and I will be in contact.”

So basically, because Konami is reviving the Silent Hill series, they want to protect the I.P. going forward. While we don understand this to a certain degree, the justification doesn’t make 100% sense. Games like Silent Hill 4, Homecoming, and Downpour were stories on their own, so the Silent Hill novels could have lived in their own comfortable universe that had nothing to do with the new games.

Still, at the end of the day, Konami is the owner of the Silent Hill I.P., and there’s nothing we can do to change this decision. All we can do is abide by their decision and no longer use the brand name for any of our products.

The request for silence, and why it was denied

One request in the final correspondence was that Shaun keeps this entire discussion to himself. He replied that he would not, and neither will we; and here’s why. 

Firstly, we never signed an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) nor did we agree to keep things confidential. Secondly, we have every right to let our audience know why the books are being pulled from the stores. We don’t believe in just letting it vanish without a word. We made no promises to keep these discussions silent. 

Having said that, we have the utmost respect for Konami and the UK representative specifically. If he wasn’t so nice about all this, it could have been worse. As a matter of fact, he just emailed us to say he understands why we need to share the information, which is great. We do agree that we won’t share his details nor any of the information he shared about the upcoming games or plans for the series.

The way forward

Ok, so now you know what happened at the beginning and why the permission was removed. The Konami UK representative told us that maybe Konami will change their minds in the future and to still hold hope. We decided in our infinite wisdom to decline and not wait. Here’s what we’re planning to do with the Silent Hill novels now.

Massive support from Silent Hill fans

We’re members of a Silent Hill group on Facebook where some members have already bought and read the books. After informing them that we need to remove the book and will update soon why, they showed just how much support there is for the novels. We just want to say thank you so much for how much you care and how much you’ve enjoyed Silent Hill Betrayal.

Changing the name and locations

So basically, the decision is to rename the series and anything in the books that relate to Silent Hill. We’re still keeping the main buildings and the layout of the streets, but we’ll need to change names. We can’t change the maps (except for names) as that will affect the main plot. We designed the maps anyway, so that won’t be an issue.

We originally thought of calling the town Quiet Valley, since readers already know it’s based on Silent Hill. We’ll keep thinking about other names, but for now, it’s the closest to what we want at the moment. Some of our readers had the same idea. Even Tormented Town sounds good.

It will still be known as the Boatman Saga, as that’s based on a character we created. The names of the books like “Betrayal” and “Obversion” will remain the same. We’re just removing Silent Hill and any references to it. 

Second round of editing

We’re very much aware that we need to do another round of editing of Betrayal. With the rush to get it published, we did a quick proofreading before publishing in 2016. Our experience in editing has increased while providing content services to Captain Words, and now we have the tools to assist us. The new Betrayal novel will therefore have fewer errors.

Also, we’re contemplating doing US and UK versions. We’ve seen reader reviews where the book uses UK terms, while Silent Hill is supposed to be an American-based city. Firstly, we are in South Africa, so UK English is our localisation. That’s why we said petrol instead of gas (yes, we saw your comment).

Thankfully, Quiet Valley / Tormented Town can be wherever Shaun wants it to be. Still, we’ll work on having two versions of the book.

The advantages of having the permission removed

While the removal of the Silent Hill license by Konami hit Shaun and us hard, we want to look at the benefits. One of the most significant benefits is that we can consider making movies and games with the series without asking for a license. We have screenwriters and game writers in the company, which means we can kick off plans for those in the coming year.

We are also not bound by this license anymore in any other regard. There’s a sense of freedom now, especially with abiding by Silent Hill lore. We don’t have to hear from fans who don’t want to see Pyramid Head in books or any other issues they had with the novel. Shaun can create his own lore, and no one can argue against it.

In a sense, it will now make the novels much easier to write.

How we feel about Konami now

While we’re angry and disgruntled at the situation, we’re not holding anything against Konami. Sure, the Silent Hill novels were going to help make a name for Shaun and Celenic Earth Publications, but we can still do that with Quiet Valley and our other plans for 2023. This might have been the push we needed.

Even though it was a mistake, we’re grateful to Konami and Ster Kinekor for the 11 years we’ve had the Silent Hill ‘permission.’ We wish we had done more with that time, but perhaps it’s good we didn’t. We would have had to do more to change all the novels and remove them all from the stores.

In the coming week, we’ll be slowly pulling the books from all online distributors. We won’t remove the product page we made for it on our site, as we have many backlinks to it. Plus, we still want to acknowledge that we were once part of the Silent Hill experience. All we will do is mark it as not for sale due to no stock. 

We’ll continue being followers of Silent Hill and Konami, as we have been since 1998. We’re hoping to be approved as press release agents for their news, so this might not be the end of the road in our relationship. Here’s hoping Konami calls on Shaun and us one day to produce official Silent Hill novels for them.

This is just the beginning for author Shaun M Jooste

Silent Hill wasn’t the be-all or end-all for Shaun. He has the epic fantasy series, Celenic Earth Chronicles, that he wants to get back to marketing. 

Also, the publisher of the game, Hade’s Star, has given him official, confirmed permission to write sci-fi books on the game (we triple checked). In the article he posted about this, he indicated other books in progress at the moment.

So yes…it’s the beginning of new things.