The fake Metal Gear 35th anniversary site owner wants MGS2&3 back on digital stores

A website titled “Metal Gear 35^th Anniversary” showed up out of nowhere a few days ago, prompting fans to speculate what it entails. However, the series’ rights holder, Konami, soon confirmed that it’s not an official website created by them (related article). And now we know that the fake website was created by an unrelated party as an April Fools’ joke.

The website was updated on April 1 with a pop-up message stating, “This website was made as an April Fools joke to parody Konami and the Castlevania auction.” The site’s design does strongly resemble that of the Castlevania 35th Anniversary NFT page, which opened in January of this year (related article).

The fake Metal Gear NFTs are all based on Hal Emmerich, making it pretty obvious who the site creator’s favorite character is. They aren’t actual NFTs that are being sold, though. Clicking on each link will take you to a notification page regarding the temporary removal of Metal Gear Solid 2 and Metal Gear Solid 3 from digital storefronts. It looks like the site creator’s primary intent lies here.

In November of last year, Konami announced the temporary removal of these two games due to delays in license renewals for “select historical archive footage used in-game.” Konami stated at the time that they would renew the licenses and make the games available for purchase again (related article).

“Konami, please don’t sue me. I’m a big fan. Instead, please use the resources you’d put into hiring lawyers towards buying the historical footage licenses needed to put MGS2 and MGS3 back on digital storefronts. I hope there’s no hard feelings, and I’m happy to transfer ownership of this domain to Konami for free,” says the site creator in the pop-up message.

The site creator’s intent becomes more apparent after reading through the Q&A segment on the website. “End of the day, I just want to be able to play my favorite games without having to worry that someday they’re just going to vanish, and without feeling like my only recourse in that nightmare scenario is through legally questionable means.”

It’s not really fair to deceive users by pretending to be an official website just to get their points across. But in any case, Konami did mention in November that the games’ removal is a temporary measure, so let’s hope they’ll return to digital stores soon.
[Update 2022/04/04 18:14 JST] Updated the last paragraph.