Publisher's reaction looks like corporate bullshit to me to be honest.
Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Just to clarify a little bit (I was a little confusing myself):
Postal was developed by the studio Goonswarm. The publisher Running With Scissors cancelled their games release because of the AI claims, and in response the developers have closed their studio, probably due to the financial strain of having your game completely cancelled by your publisher.
“After revealing POSTAL: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing, we’ve been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned POSTAL Community,” reads a statement from Running With Scissors founder Vince Desi, emailed to RPS this afternoon. "The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation.
“We’ve always been, and will always be, transparent with our community,” Desi continues. "Our trust in the development team is broken; therefore, we’ve killed the project. We have a lot of good things coming (some you know and some you don’t).
“Since forming Running With Scissors in 1996, we’ve always said that our fans are part of the team,” it concludes. “Our priority is to always do right by the millions who support the POSTAL franchise. We are grateful for the opportunity to make the games we want to play, and will continue to focus on our new projects and updates coming in 2026 and beyond. We can’t wait to share more!”
Postal: Bullet Paradise was once “a timeline-hopping, dystopian bullet heaven first-person shooter with POSTAL’s signature darkly humorous personality”. The project is “no longer available” on Steam, though it still has a page as of writing.
Desi’s statement doesn’t mention which elements of the game may have been AI-generated, or whether they’ve taken any steps to confirm this with Goonswarm.
It seems like the publisher hasn’t done much to work with the devs, finding the true story instead of reacting to knee-jerk public opinions, and has just pulled the rug out from under them to protect themselves instead.
The devs have adamantly insisted there is no AI in their work; and if true, this really really sucks.
zout@fedia.io 4 days ago
Rose_Thorne@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
This really comes off as a knee-jerk reaction by RWS. I get they’ve been burned in the past by shit like Postal 3, and Postal is about the only thing people know them for, but this should have been handled much better.
Delay things, verify there is no generative AI used, at worst replace assets that are deemed questionable.
calliope@retrolemmy.com 4 days ago
I agree, I thought the same thing.
I’ve seen in articles RWS saying they “don’t trust the developers” anymore, which is a bizarre thing to talk about in public so quickly.
fistac0rpse@fedia.io 4 days ago
Maybe they already knew about the AI content and was waiting to see what the public feedback was like?
Rose_Thorne@lemmy.zip 4 days ago
Even in that case, they were quick to cut ties and not mention it to the public in the announcement, which doesn’t make them look any better.
I say this as a long time Postal fan girl, I can ever get a slight kick out of 3 as terrible as it is. Either way, RWS doesn’t look good right now. They were either aware of generative AI being used and refused to declare it, or they decided a bit of public backlash was worth tanking a studio over without verification.