Exclusive for VGTimes! The creators of Postal explain why Postal 3 became «crap on the hands» and who came up with «shoving all sorts of things up cats' butts»

Postal is the most ultra-violent and intolerant game series in history: here you can use cats as silencers, pee on everyone you meet, and turn life in the town of Paradise into a living nightmare. The project was banned in many countries, but in Russia it was received with special love. To make the story of the Dude's adventures interesting and convincing, I interviewed the creators of the series Vince Desi and Mike Jaret and now I'm ready to tell you what madness is. It's going to be hot!

1997 can be called one of the most important years in the industry. It was then that Resident Evil, Fallout, Quake 2, Ultima Online and other hits were released. And in 1997, Postal was released. It would seem that an isometric shooter, the main character of which was a crazy Dude, should have gotten lost among the competitors... But the game was discussed even more than all the others put together. True, it was not the gameplay that caught people's attention: Postal had a solid one, but it did not amaze the imagination. It was all about the incredible cruelty: the developers allowed players to commit genocide not only against armed enemies, but also against civilians and even innocent animals.

Vince Dezi: When we first started, my team was making educational games for kids: Disney, Tom and Jerry — and everything was great. But we wanted to make video games that we ourselves would enjoy, that we ourselves would want to play. At that time, everyone was playing Warcraft and Dune… And I grew up on the streets, where cruelty was encountered every day, and I wanted to make a truthful and funny game, not about zombies or aliens, but about real life.

In Postal, you can shoot up a marching band, and it's funny. Of course, if that happened in real life, I wouldn't find it funny, but it's a game. It's supposed to allow people to express themselves, to release tension, to have fun! You can play Postal with a friend who will just sit there, watch, and laugh. You don't even have to play Postal to enjoy it, and there aren't many games like that... Our goal has always been to make a truly entertaining game, and we've achieved that.

Mike Jarrett: Honestly, we never cared about how violent the game was, we just wanted to make something we would play ourselves.

Complaints started pouring in even before the release. The name Postal refers to the American neologism «going postal». In the 80s and 90s, visiting the American post office was dangerous: mass murders committed by employees of the branches at work were not uncommon. In total, between 1986 and 1997, there were at least 20 bloody incidents in which more than 40 people were killed.

The game's title did not escape the attention of the head of the US Postal Service, who sent an official letter of protest to the Running With Scissors office. However, the developers have only just begun to use the complaint in advertising campaigns.

Vince Dezi: We have always received a lot of complaints: from the government, from parent groups, from many others. Today, there are far fewer complaints, but some companies still do not want to work with us! For example, we recently looked for a company to make T-shirts for us — as soon as the manufacturers found out who we were, they refused to cooperate. And this has been happening for several years. Fortunately, there are always those who want to make money.

Despite the persecution (or thanks to it), Postal found its audience and became popular. Soon the developers released an add-on, a version specifically for the Japanese market, and then began creating a sequel.

Postal 2 was released in 2003 and was very different from the original (not only in the first-person view). If the first part had no place for humor or plot, then the sequel turned into a real attraction of ironic and sarcastic madness. «Respectable citizens» were horrified, adequate players — had fun.

According to the plot, the Dude was doing ordinary household chores, but even a trip to get milk inevitably turned into a local apocalypse. The RWS office, the main character's workplace, was attacked by protesters against cruelty in games, and the library was broken into by crazed environmentalists — and this went on for five whole days (the DLC also added a weekend that ended with an atomic bomb explosion).

At the same time, the Dude could be not only a maniac, but also a good boy. If you came to the bank to cash a check and got stuck in an unrealistically huge line, then you don't have to pour gasoline on citizens, shoot employees and take money from the vault by force. You can just patiently wait to complete the task. Has anyone done this? I don't think so.

It was much more fun to run out into the street, piss on passersby, knock off a couple of heads with a shovel, and then put a cat on a machine gun. What can you do, Postal 2 had silencers like that.

Vince Desi: Honestly, I don't think the idea for the cat came from one person: we got together to discuss each character, each weapon... The one who was most inspired by the idea was Steve Wik. He's a big cat lover by the way (people think we hate cats, but we don't).

Actually, when I was a kid, there were weird animals running around the neighborhood (they'd go crazy in the spring), so sticking something up a cat's butt was totally normal for us... Now, of course, I think differently: I guess I'm older and wiser...

Mike Jarrett: No, I didn't. You still stick stuff up cats' butts! (Laughs).

The most memorable day was probably Tuesday, as it gave birth to one of the most memorable memes of the time. «Could you sign my petition?» is a phrase that even people far removed from the industry have heard at least once.

Vince Dhesi: The petition joke is very simple, funny, and familiar to almost everyone. 99% of jokes from other video games are understood only by fans, but this one is understood by everyone. It helps people interact… We didn't analyze every joke in the game, we didn't do market research on whether they were appropriate or not. We have an open mind, open communication in the team. This allows Postal to be a very funny and at the same time realistic game that brought gamers so much fun.

While in Russia we enjoyed the chaos of Paradise, in many other countries Postal 2 was banned. But we all know which fruit is the sweetest.

Vince Desi: Why did other countries ban Postal? I think it was politics. Australia, China, Indonesia, Korea, New Zealand, Germany, Brazil… Even the US. When the original Postal came out in 1997, our government was against violent games. A famous liberal said that there were three things that threatened American society: Marilyn Manson, Calvin Klein (yes, I mean underwear), and, of course, Postal. Since then, we have always been under the gun.

Despite the fact that we added a lot of jokes to Postal 2, for example, ourselves as characters (not many games allow you to piss on your own developers), our sense of humor was not understood everywhere. Fortunately, in Russia they like to piss, and that's good!

The series was unusually popular in our area, even the crappy movie was received relatively well. It is not surprising that it was the Russian Akella that created the DLC for Postal 2 «The Corkscrew Burns», and then bought the rights to develop a sequel.

It all started well: the TrashMasters studio was burning with the idea, there was enough money, and the demo version of the game in 2009 earned an award as the most unconventional project. However, at some point, something went wrong. Postal 3 is rightly considered one of the worst games in the industry. It had no charisma, no exciting gameplay, no witty humor. Calling it a pale shadow of Postal 2 would be a compliment. Why did this happen? The developers of the original know better than anyone.

Vince Dezi: It's very simple: the Russian economy took a real hit. When that happened, Akella lost a lot of valuable employees. The company fell apart, the team fell apart... It's no surprise that the game fell apart. I don't think the failure is a problem for any one person. It's a problem for the Russian economy.

Mike Jarrett: Plus, people stopped buying games. It was the time of piracy. When your country's economy is in shambles, you're not going to spend money on games. It was a blow to the entire industry. But everyone would agree that it would have been better if the game had never been released. We had a clear opinion on this matter, but it was not listened to, because a lot of money was invested in the project...

Postal 3 turned out so terrible that RWS politely asked to give them the game to fix the bugs. Imagine the developers' surprise when Akella not only refused, but also started a dispute about who now owns the rights to Postal! As a result, the fathers of the series in Postal 2: Paradise Lost called the third part nothing less than the Dude's nightmare during a coma.

Mike Jarrett: Postal 3 is like taking a shit in the toilet and discovering that there is no toilet paper. You wipe the shit off with your hand, and then try to wash it off with water — but nothing works. The shit stays on your hand forever. Don't buy it!

It took Dude four years to recover from the Postal 3 nosedive. In 2015, Paradise Lost, a solid DLC for Postal 2, was released, and in 2019, the long-awaited Postal 4 appeared in Steam Early Access. According to the developers, the project was initially a remaster of Postal 2, but then transformed into a full-fledged sequel.

Literally every pixel of Postal 4 hints that its goal is to become the new Postal 2, and this has both pros and cons. Behind the technical imperfections lies the same madness that made gamers fall in love with the series in 2003, although playing the beta in 2021 is not as fun (at least in Early Access). At the moment, only two days in the life of the Dude are available, but the full release, apparently, is just around the corner.

Mike Jarrett: Postal 4 will probably come out in late summer.

Vince Dhesi: We finished «Wednesday», we plan to finish «Thursday» in June... Just so you understand, the last ten percent of development is ninety percent of success. Postal 4 is a huge open-world game, even Unreal Engine 4 can't handle it. There is no engine right now that supports what we are doing. Plus, we want to improve everything we have already created. The game is constantly improving as development progresses, which means that the innovations should also affect the work done earlier. Therefore, when we make «Friday», it will not be the end of the work. We will have to bring the rest of the days up to its standards.

In fact, the series has not changed since 2003. The authors understand this and plan to keep up with the times. They are especially closely monitoring the VR industry.

Vince Dezi: VR is becoming more and more popular, and I constantly get emails asking: «When will I be able to pee everything in virtual reality?» One day we will do it, it's just a matter of time. The main thing is that the game is fun and funny. «Fun and funny» is our motto, the ideal we strive for in every game! Not everyone agrees that our games are funny, but we like them.

Given the epidemic of global tolerance, it's surprising that Running With Scissors continues to bend its line. Today, one misunderstood word can ruin a career, but the developers are not afraid of it.

Vince Desi: It's called «cancel culture»: even Dr. Seuss children's books are banned these days. Sure, people might think I'm an extremist, but I don't give a shit what you do in your personal life, I just ask that you follow two rules: leave children alone and don't rape them! If you want to fuck a gorilla, I don't care, gorillas might be really cool. I'm not saying that people can't disagree or disagree with something, that's fine. But today, having an opinion that differs from the mainstream can get you persecuted.

Mike Jarrett: We do what we like. What we think is funny. If someone likes it, great. If not, we'll go work somewhere for pennies. We're ready for the haters, we even registered the trademark «Worst Game of All Time», but we know our place in history.

Vince Dezi: A lot of developers try to make games for the widest possible audience. We don't, and that's been the case from the beginning. We're not Coca-Cola, to please everyone, and that's okay. If you try to please everyone, there's nothing good about it, it breeds mediocrity that has no face or taste. But you'll recognize Postal right away.

In the interview, we discussed a lot of things that weren't particularly close to the history of Postal, but would still be interesting for fans. For example, on March 5th, Postal: Redux was released on PlayStation Store. I wondered if there was any hope of ever playing Postal 2 on consoles.

Mike Jarrett: It's almost impossible to port Postal 2... Even on PC, the game crashes a lot, and we physically can't fix it. Maybe someone will try, but it's an incredibly difficult task... Maybe after the release of Postal 4, we'll take on a remaster, since at least we'll have a world and enough assets, but we're not talking about the near future. Right now, we're focused on finishing the fourth part.

Vince Desi: But Postal 4 will be on PlayStation and maybe Switch and Xbox.

After the release of Postal 3, there was a lot of talk about the conflict between the creators of the series and Akella. I found out if the authors harbored a grudge against the Russian gaming industry.

Vince Dezi: Some of our colleagues who are part of the team are from Russia, and they are great guys. This is a business, shit happens, it comes and goes... I love Russia, I want to go back to Moscow again, but I don't like the cold. Every time we flew in, it was winter. And I don't drink either...

If Postal 4 had appeared on Kickstarter, it would have probably broken the bank. So why hasn't the sequel collected people's money yet?

Vince Dezi: We initially decided to make the game ourselves. Luckily, Postal 4 started selling well on Steam, and we were able to grow the team and continue working. We could get funding from investors or publishers. But when someone gives you money, they usually try to impose their opinion on you. In the end, it just wasn't necessary.

If the developers are planning to release Postal 4 at the end of summer, then they obviously have a lot of work. Do they even have time for other games?

Mike Jarrett: I played Cyberpunk 2077, and I have no problems with it. The game is big, expensive and as long as it should be. Of course, it is not perfect, but I liked the city, the environment, the story... Yes, there are bugs, and there are a lot of them for a game with such a budget, which was also in development for eight years, but the project is very ambitious. I have not finished the game, but it was good. If you wait for patches or play on current consoles or PC, you will like it. I also played Death Stranding, and it is a great project from Kojima Productions. Watch Dogs: Legion is also a very cool game.

Of course, I found out which game the developers consider the best in 2020, and the answer was not surprising.

Mike Jarrett: I don't want to praise myself, but Postal 4 is definitely the best game of all time.

Postal really has a face: everyone recognizes the series. RWS has its own face too. Vince Desi and Mike Jarrett are not trying to shock or behave defiantly. They sincerely love their business, do exclusively what gives them pleasure, and have fun from the heart, whether you like it or not.

I sincerely wish the developers the best of luck with the release of Postal 4 and I hope the sequel will be a great game. Thanks for the interview, Vince and Mike. Thanks for the incredible experience in 2003. You guys rock!

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VGTimes has been operating since 2011 and during this time has visited dozens of exhibitions and festivals, where our journalists have collected many exclusive materials. For example, in 2019 we got to a closed screening of Cyberpunk 2077 at gamescom, in 2017 we prepared a photo report from WG Fest, in 2020 we were at the largest gaming event in Central Asia CAGS, and also visited IgroMir several times, where we saw Hideo Kojima and other famous developers.