 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Video games |
| Predecessor | Riedel Software Productions |
| Founded | 1996; 29 years ago (1996) |
| Founder | Vince Desi |
| Headquarters | , US |
Key people | Vince Desi (CEO) |
| Products | Postal series (1997–present) |
| Website | runningwithscissors |
Running with Scissors (RWS) is an Americanvideo game developer based inTucson, Arizona. It was founded in 1996 by Vince Desi through a business decision of Riedel Software Productions, whose games were often licensed titles aimed towards children. RWS created and maintains thePostal franchise, which has often caused controversy for its use of violence and crude humor. RWS' first game wasPostal in 1997, which caused much controversy and a trademark lawsuit from theUnited States Postal Service that lasted until 2003. A potential second game,Flesh and Wire, was canceled in 1999. The company followed upPostal withPostal 2 in 2003. The third game in the series,Postal III, was co-developed by RWS and an internal team of publisherAkella, and RWS distanced itself from the game due to poor critical reception. RWS most recently worked onPostal 4: No Regerts, which was released in 2022, and thespin-offPostal: Brain Damaged, with a remake of the second installment in the making, calledPostal 2 Redux.
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Running with Scissors (RWS) was founded by Vincent James Desiderio Jr., a native ofBrooklyn with Italian roots.[1][2] Early in his life, he picked up a high-school teaching career before quitting a semester later and working several different jobs, including taxi driver and manager of arecording studio. While a recruiter onWall Street, he adopted the short name "Vince Desi" upon request from his boss.[1] Eventually, while seeking to hire workers in the computer industry, Desi became involved with and later a consultant for the video game companyAtari. He befriended one of his hires, recentRochester Institute of Technology dropout Mike Riedel, with whom he founded Riedel Software Productions (RSP) after Atari faced financial instability. RSP specialized in developingedutainment games for children and games based on licensed properties on awork-for-hire basis, with its early games includingSpy vs. Spy (its first game, developed for the magazineMad in 1985),Tom & Jerry, andBobby's World, as well as other games developed forSesame Street,Hanna-Barbera,The Walt Disney Company,Warner Bros., and theWorld Wrestling Federation, among others.[1][2] Because Desi had no knowledge of programming and little interest in video games, he handled business affairs for the company, while Riedel was in charge of creative operations.[1]
By the early 1990s, when Desi was 39, several factors led him to wish to relocate; Desi and Riedel discussed several potential cities—includingPhoenix,Santa Fe,Albuquerque, andSeattle—before they settled onTucson, Arizona.[1] Desi, Riedel and RSP moved to Tucson in 1991.[1][2] At the time, RSP consisted of the two founders and two further employees, however, one of the employees did not turn up atJohn F. Kennedy International Airport, where the team was supposed to meet for the relocation, while the other employee quit two weeks following the relocation and moved back to New York. RSP was welcomed to the city by officials and the Greater Tucson Economic Council. The company was among the list of companies (others includingHughes Electronics) honored for moving to the city in 1992.[1] In Tucson, RSP continued its prior business of developing child-friendly games and licensed games, though by 1996–1997, Desi and much of RSP's team were bored of developing them, wherefore RSP set up RWS as a separate company to develop games targeted at adults.[1][2] This formation was announced on March 13, 1997.[3] Initially, RWS was to be run alongside RSP, drawing funding from RSP's sales and acting as RSP's edgier label. Shared between the two companies were three development teams: One, consisting of seven people, developed the first RWS game, one creating an edutainment game based on the filmFree Willy, and another making an edutainment game for an academic publisher.[2]
According to Desi, the RWS team wanted to make an original game, the most outrageous game they could.[1][2] Inspired by the gameRobotron: 2084, which had been playable at the RSP offices, RWS began work onPostal. The game saw the Postal Dude engage inmass murder, and it was named after the slang term "going postal", referring to murders performed byUnited States Postal Service (USPS) employees.[2] In 1997, RWS filed a trademark for the word "Postal" in the area of electronic gaming. In response, the USPS counter-filed that trademark, alleging that it was moving into video games, andMarvin Travis Runyon, theUnited States Postmaster General at the time, sent RWS a letter condemning the game's theme.[1][2] The legal battle was eventually dismissedwith prejudice in June 2003.[2][4] The theme also caused wider controversy within the media and thevideo game industry, to the surprise of Desi, who consideredPostal to be more comical and "over-the-top" and stated that the game was not to be taken seriously.[1][2]Postal was released in 1997 forWindows andMac OS as the first game ofRipcord Games, a publishing label ofMatsushita Electric's Panasonic Interactive Media division.[5][6] Following the release, the game was targeted by senatorJoe Lieberman, who labeled it as one of the worst things in America, while retail chainsCompUSA andWal-Mart refused to sell the game.[1][2] In its first week,Postal was sold over 10,000 times in the United States, and sales in Europe (where the game was released byTake-Two Interactive) were expected to reach 100,000.[7] Desi estimated that the game generated roughlyUS$5 million in revenue.[1] RWS followed up withSpecial Delivery, anadd-on of four levels released in August 1998 that allowed the player to murder lawyers, homeless people, andAmerican Red Cross workers, among others.[2][8] A Japan-exclusive version ofPostal, titledSuper Postal, was released in 2000, andPostal Plus, a bundle composed ofPostal andSpecial Delivery, came out in 2002.[2]
WithPostal released, RWS conceivedFlesh and Wire, an original three-dimensionalsci-fi-themed game in which the player controls a blob-shaped character; Desi described the game as unintentionally funny. However, the game was canceled by Ripcord in 1999 alongside two unannounced games, and RWS turned to focus only onPostal. Consequently, RWS soon picked up development onPostal 2, asequel toPostal. The company attempted to make its humor more evident than it was in the original game so it would reach a wider audience. When brainstorming ideas for the game, the team consideredGary Coleman, a formerchild actor known for his role in the showDiff'rent Strokes, as a good fit for the game's theme. Desi called up Coleman, who agreed to his inclusion and performed himself in the game.[2]Postal 2 was released in April 2003 through publisher Whiptail Interactive.[9]Postal 2 was shortly banned in 13 countries; New Zealand banned it in 2004 and Australia in 2005. Desi later struck a deal with the company Softwrap to have the game distributed online, which bypassed the bans.[2] Due to the popularity ofPostal 2, Whiptail releasedPostal: Classic and Uncut, containing the originalPostal andSpecial Delivery, as well as a demo version ofPostal 2, in August that year.[10] This was followed byShare the Pain, a version ofPostal 2 that introducedonline multiplayer to the game.[11] In Europe, this version was published by Greek company Hell-Tech.[12] A separate expansion,Apocalypse Weekend, was released in 2005.[2] ThePostal Fudge Pack—a compilation containing the originalPostal,Share the Pain,Apocalypse Weekend, the fan-madetotal conversionEternal Damnation, and the fan-made modA Week in Paradise—was released in November 2006.[13] A similar compilation,Postal: 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition, was released the following year.[14][15]
DuringPostal 2's development, RWS got in contact withUwe Boll, a director of video game-based films likeHouse of the Dead,Alone in the Dark, andBloodRayne. Although Boll's films were usually received poorly, Desi believed that Boll's independent andanti-establishment attitude was a good fit for thePostal series. The resultingfilm was shot in theVancouver area, with Desi playing himself as well as Krotchy, an anthropomorphicscrotum from thePostal universe. The film faced several issues, such as overlength and poor editing and marketing efforts.[2]
RWS' next game wasPostal III; the company struck a deal with Russian publisherAkella that saw RWS create the script, music, design and character development for the game, which was then moved to Akella's in-house developers, Trashmasters, for programming and art production. During the development, however, theRussian economy fell and the development was mostly ramped down.Postal III was released in December 2011 to very bad reception, leading RWS to pull it from its online store the following year. Desi stated that the finishedPostal III was "a product that should have never been published".[2] In response, RWS developedParadise Lost, a new add-on forPostal 2 that was released in April 2015, twelve years afterPostal 2's original release.[2][16] In May 2016, the company released aremake of the originalPostal titledPostal Redux.[2][17] Another compilation,Postal XX: 20th Anniversary Edition, was released in 2017.[2] RWS then releasedPostal 4: No Regerts, first as anearly access game in October 2019 and then fully in April 2022.[18][19] The company worked with developers Hyperstrange andCreativeForge Games on thespin-offPostal: Brain Damaged.[20]
| Year | Title | Platform(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | Postal | Android,Linux,Mac OS,macOS,Windows | |
| 2003 | Postal 2 | Linux, macOS, Windows | |
| 2011 | Postal III | Windows | Co-developed with Trashmasters |
| 2016 | Postal Redux | Linux,Nintendo Switch,PlayStation 4, Windows | Remaster ofPostal |
| 2022 | Postal 4: No Regerts | PlayStation 4,PlayStation 5, Windows | |
| Postal: Brain Damaged | PlayStation 4,PlayStation 5, Windows, Nintendo Switch | Developed by Hyperstrange andCreativeForge Games, published by Running with Scissors and Hyperstrange | |
| 2023 | Poostall Royale | Windows | April Fools' joke |
| TBA | Postal 2: VR[21] | Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, Windows | Developed by Running With Scissors, Team Beef and Flat2VR Studios |
| TBA | Postal 2: Redux | Windows, MacOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch | Developed by Running With Scissors, Impact Inked, and Team Beef |
| International | |
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| National | |
