Running with Scissors (company)

Running with Scissors Studios LLC
FormerlyRWS, Inc. (1998-2019)
Company type
Private
IndustryVideo games
PredecessorRiedel Software Productions
Founded1996 (1996)
Founders
  • Vince Desi
  • Mike Riedel
Headquarters
Tucson, Arizona
,
U.S.
Key people
Vince Desi (CEO)
ProductsPostal series (1997–present)
Websiterunningwithscissors.com

Running with Scissors Studios LLC (RWS) is an American video game developer based in Tucson, Arizona. RWS was formed in 1996 by Vince Desi and Mike Riedel as a mature label for Riedel Software Productions (RSP), a work for hire developer that mainly produced licensed titles aimed towards children. RWS is known for producing the Postal franchise, which has caused controversy with its use of violence and crude humor.

History

Origins and Riedel Software Productions

Vince Desi (pictured in 2006) has led Running with Scissors as its chief executive officer since its founding.[1][2]

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.[1][3] While working as a recruiter on Wall Street, he adopted the short name "Vince Desi" upon request from his boss.[1] Seeking to hire workers in the computer industry, Desi eventually became a consultant for the video game company Atari, Inc. in the early 1980s.[4][2]

The logo of Riedel Software Productions (RSP), the work for hire 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.[4][1][5] 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.[5][6] Amidst Atari's ongoing financial instability, Desi and Riedel founded Riedel Software Productions, Inc. (RSP) in 1986.[4][1][7] 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.[4][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—including Phoenix, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, and Seattle—before they settled on Tucson, Arizona.[1] Desi, Riedel and RSP moved to Tucson in late 1991.[1][2] 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.[1] In Tucson, RSP continued developing licensed games for children, earning several awards and receiving letters of recommendation from high-profile clients.[4][1][8]

Postal and Running with Scissors

By 1996, the developers at RSP were bored of developing children's titles.[7][2] Several project cancellations nearly closed the studio, and pay cuts were taken by staff.[4][3] 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.[1][2][4] 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.'"[4] 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.[2] According to Desi, the RWS team wanted to make the most outrageous and original game they could.[1][2] 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.[2]

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.[1][2] The legal battle was eventually dismissed with prejudice in June 2003.[2][9] 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.[1][2] 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.[10][11] 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.[1][2] RSP's former children's game publishing clients ceased business with the studio due to its connection to Postal.[4]

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.[12] Desi estimated that the game generated roughly US$5 million in revenue.[1] 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.[2][13] 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.[2] Postal 2 was released in April 2003 through publisher Whiptail Interactive.[14] 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 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.[15] This was followed by Share the Pain, a version of Postal 2 that introduced online multiplayer to the game.[16] In Europe, this version was published by Greek company Hell-Tech.[17] A separate expansion, Apocalypse Weekend, was released in 2005.[2] 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.[18] A similar compilation, Postal: 10th Anniversary Collector's Edition, was released the following year.[19][20] Riedel left RWS in 2004, pivoting to engineering.[21]

During Postal 2's 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.[2]

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".[2] In response, RWS developed Paradise Lost, a new add-on for Postal 2 that was released in April 2015, twelve years after Postal 2's original release.[2][22] In May 2016, the company released a remake of the original Postal titled Postal Redux.[2][23] Another compilation, Postal XX: 20th Anniversary Edition, was released in 2017.[2] RWS then released Postal 4: No Regerts, first as an early access game in October 2019 and then fully in April 2022.[24][25] The company worked with developers Hyperstrange and CreativeForge Games on the spin-off Postal: Brain Damaged.[26]

Games

As Riedel Software Productions

Release year Title Platforms Publisher Notes
1987 Big Bird's Special Delivery Apple II Hi Tech Expressions Apple II conversion.[27]
Ernie's Magic Shapes
MicroLeague Wrestling Atari ST, Commodore 64 MicroLeague Co-developed with Subway Software.[28][27]
1988 Commando Atari 2600 Activision Atari 2600 conversion.[29][27]
Matterhorn Screamer Apple II, Commodore 64 Hi Tech Expressions Apple II and Commodore 64 conversions.[27]
The Chase on Tom Sawyer's Island
1990 Win, Lose or Draw Nintendo Entertainment System Nintendo Entertainment System conversion.[30][27]
Remote Control
The Bugs Bunny Hare-Brained Adventure MS-DOS [31][27]
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers: The Adventures in Nimnul's Castle
Big Bird's Hide and Speak Nintendo Entertainment System [30][27]
1991 Ikari Warriors Atari 2600 Atari Corporation Atari 2600 conversion.[32][27]
Daffy Duck, P.I.: The Case of the Missing Letters MS-DOS Hi Tech Expressions [27]
Gremlins 2: The New Batch
Adventures of Beetlejuice: Skeletons in the Closet [27][33]
1992 Sesame Street: Countdown Nintendo Entertainment System [30][27]
1993 The Hunt for Red October Super Nintendo Entertainment System [34][27]
Tom and Jerry
Beethoven: The Ultimate Canine Caper
1994 Sesame Street: Counting Cafe Sega Genesis Electronic Arts [27]
1995 Cartoon Jukebox Mac OS, Windows Philips Interactive Media Mac OS and Windows ports.[35][27]
Sandy's Circus Adventure
The Dark Fables of Aesop
1996 Muppets Inside Windows Starwave Supporting developer of the Beaker's Brain and Scope that Song minigames.[4][27]
1997 Barbie Fashion Designer Mac OS Mattel Media Mac OS port.[36][27]
Grolier's CornerStone Home Mac OS, Windows Grolier Interactive [37][27]
Wishbone Activity Zone Palladium Interactive [38][27]

Unreleased

Cancellation year Title Platforms Publisher Notes
1993 Untitled Donkey Kong game CD-i Philips Interactive Media [39][40]
1994 Bobby's World Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System Hi Tech Entertainment Originally scheduled for late 1994. A prototype of the SNES version was uploaded to a public bulletin board system by a warez group in October 1994.[41][27]
1995 Steven Seagal is the Final Option Super Nintendo Entertainment System TecMagik Originally scheduled for early 1994 along with a Genesis version by a different developer. The game was delayed to early 1995 before being canceled. A prototype of the SNES version was later released online.[42][27]
Free Willy PC Electronic Arts [4][43][44]
Zootopia CD-i, Mac OS, Windows Philips Interactive Media [45][27]
1996 Casper Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System Hi Tech Entertainment [27]
Gearheads Super Nintendo Entertainment System Philips Interactive Media Originally scheduled for late 1996.[46][47][27]

As Running with Scissors

Release year Title Platforms Publisher Notes
1997 Postal Android, Dreamcast, Linux, Mac OS, macOS, Windows Ripcord Games
2003 Postal 2 Linux, macOS, Windows Whiptail Interactive
2011 Postal III Windows Akella Co-developed with Trashmasters.
2016 Postal Redux Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows Running with Scissors Remaster of Postal.
2022 Postal 4: No Regerts PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows
Postal: Brain Damaged PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Nintendo Switch Developed by Hyperstrange and CreativeForge Games, published by Running with Scissors and Hyperstrange.
2023 Poostall Royale Windows April Fools' joke.
2027 Flesh & Wire PlayStation 5, Windows [48]
TBA Postal 2 VR Meta Quest, PlayStation VR2, Windows Co-developed with Team Beef and Flat2VR Studios.[49]
Postal 2 Redux Windows, MacOS, Linux, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch Co-developed with Team Beef and Impact Inked.

Canceled

Cancellation year Title Platforms Publisher Notes
1999 Flesh & Wire Dreamcast, GameCube, PlayStation 2 Ripcord Games [50][51]
Guardian Windows [27][52]
New World Order
2000 MobWorld Running with Scissors [53]
2025 Postal: Bullet Paradise Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows Developed by Goonswarm Studios. Canceled in December 2025 after significant backlash over the use of AI-generated art.[54]

References

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