Origins and Riedel Software Productions since its founding. Early in his life, Vincent James Desiderio Jr., a native of
Brooklyn, New York with Italian roots, had picked up a high school teaching career before quickly abandoning it and leaving after one semester. He then took on several different jobs, working as a taxi driver, nightclub promoter, and
recording studio manager. While working as a
recruiter on
Wall Street, he adopted the short name "Vince Desi" upon request from his boss. Seeking to hire workers in the computer industry, Desi eventually became a consultant for the video game company
Atari, Inc. in the early 1980s. game developer that would later become Running with Scissors. At Atari, Desi hired and befriended Mike Riedel, a German-born programmer and recent
Rochester Institute of Technology dropout. With Desi as his business negotiator, Riedel created the game
Spy vs. Spy (1984) for
First Star Software and
Mad magazine. The game was a success, spawning
two sequels and netting Riedel industry-wide recognition. Amidst Atari's ongoing financial instability, Desi and Riedel founded Riedel Software Productions, Inc. (RSP) in 1986. RSP specialized in developing games based on licensed properties on a
work for hire basis, mainly producing family-oriented titles for
Children's Television Workshop,
The Walt Disney Company,
Warner Bros., the
World Wrestling Federation, and others. 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. By the early 1990s, when Desi was 39, several factors led him to wish to relocate; Desi and Riedel discussed several potential cities—including
Phoenix,
Santa Fe,
Albuquerque, and
Seattle—before they settled on
Tucson, Arizona. Desi, Riedel and RSP moved to Tucson in late 1991. At the time, RSP consisted of the two founders and two employees. However, one of the employees did not turn up at
John F. Kennedy International Airport, where the team was supposed to meet for the relocation, while the other 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 including
Hughes Electronics) honored for moving to the city in 1992. In Tucson, RSP continued developing licensed games for children, earning several awards and receiving letters of recommendation from high-profile clients.
Postal and Running with Scissors By 1996, the developers at RSP were bored of developing children's titles. Several project cancellations nearly closed the studio, and pay cuts were taken by staff. Desiring to produce games they would want to play themselves, Desi and Riedel established a new brand label, Running with Scissors (RWS), to allow RSP to develop mature games under a separate name. The label is a reference to
children going against parental discipline, with Desi telling the
Wall Street Journal that "We wanted to come up with something that we felt good about, that also got the message across, 'What did your mother tell you to do when you were a kid? Don't run with scissors.'" RWS was intended be run alongside RSP, drawing funding from RSP's sales and acting as RSP's edgier label. RSP was divided into three development teams: One, consisting of seven people, developed the first RWS game, one developed a game based on the film
Free Willy (1993), and another developed an edutainment game for an academic publisher. According to Desi, the RWS team wanted to make the most outrageous and original game they could. Inspired by the arcade game
Robotron: 2084 (1982), which had been playable at the RSP offices, RWS began work on
Postal. The game saw the protagonist engage in
mass murder, and it was named after the slang term "
going postal", referring to murders performed by
United States Postal Service (USPS) employees. Shortly after the reveal of the game in early 1997, the USPS counter-filed the trademark that RWS had filed for the word "Postal" in the area of electronic gaming. The USPS claimed it was moving into video games, and
Marvin Travis Runyon, the
United States Postmaster General at the time, sent RWS a letter condemning the game's theme. The legal battle was eventually dismissed
with prejudice in June 2003. The theme also caused wider controversy within the media and the
video game industry, to the surprise of Desi, who considered
Postal to be more comical and "over-the-top" and stated that the game was not to be taken seriously.
Postal was released in September 1997 for
Windows and
Mac OS as the first game of
Ripcord Games, a publishing label of
Matsushita Electric's
Panasonic Interactive Media division. Following the release, the game was targeted by senator
Joe Lieberman, who labeled it as one of the worst things in America, while retail chains
CompUSA and
Wal-Mart refused to sell the game. RSP's former children's game publishing clients ceased business with the studio due to its connection to
Postal. In its first week,
Postal was sold over 10,000 times in the United States, and sales in Europe (where the game was released by
Take-Two Interactive) were expected to reach 100,000. Desi estimated that the game generated roughly in revenue. RWS followed up
Postal with
Special Delivery, an
add-on of four levels released in August 1998 that allowed the player to murder lawyers, homeless people, and
American Red Cross workers, among others.
Postal Plus, a bundle composed of
Postal and
Special Delivery, released in 2000.
Postal 2 and other projects With
Postal released, RWS conceived
Flesh and Wire, an original three-dimensional
sci-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 on
Postal. Consequently, RWS soon picked up development on
Postal 2, a
sequel to
Postal. 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 considered
Gary Coleman, a former
child actor known for his role in the show ''
Diff'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.
Postal 2 was released in April 2003 through publisher Whiptail Interactive.
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. Due to the popularity of
Postal 2, Whiptail released
Postal: Classic and Uncut, containing the original
Postal and
Special Delivery, as well as a demo version of
Postal 2, in August that year. This was followed by
Share the Pain, a version of
Postal 2 that introduced
online multiplayer to the game. In Europe, this version was published by Greek company Hell-Tech. A separate expansion,
Apocalypse Weekend, was released in 2005. The
Postal Fudge Pack—a compilation containing the original
Postal,
Share the Pain,
Apocalypse Weekend, the fan-made
total conversion Eternal Damnation, and the fan-made mod
A Week in Paradise—was released in November 2006. A similar compilation, ''Postal: 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition'', was released the following year. Riedel left RWS in 2004, pivoting to engineering. During
Postal 2 development, RWS got in contact with
Uwe Boll, a director of video game-based films like
House of the Dead,
Alone in the Dark, and
BloodRayne. Although Boll's films were usually received poorly, Desi believed that Boll's independent and
anti-establishment attitude was a good fit for the
Postal series. The resulting
film was shot in the
Vancouver area, with Desi playing himself as well as Krotchy, an anthropomorphic
scrotum from the
Postal universe. The film faced several issues, such as overlength and poor editing and marketing efforts.
Postal III, Postal Redux, and Postal 4 RWS' next game was
Postal III; the company struck a deal with Russian publisher
Akella 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, the
Russian 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 finished
Postal III was "a product that should have never been published". In response, RWS developed
Paradise Lost, a new add-on for
Postal 2 that was released in April 2015, twelve years after
Postal 2 original release. In May 2016, the company released a
remake of the original
Postal titled
Postal Redux. Another compilation,
Postal XX: 20th Anniversary Edition, was released in 2017. RWS then released
Postal 4: No Regerts, first as an
early access game in October 2019 and then fully in April 2022. The company worked with developers Hyperstrange and
CreativeForge Games on the
spin-off Postal: Brain Damaged. == Games ==