Publisher reveals and immediately cancels new Postal game after fans accuse it of using AI generation

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨alyaza@beehaw.org⁩ to ⁨gaming@beehaw.org⁩

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/publisher-reveals-and-immediately-cancels-new-postal-game-after-fans-accuse-it-of-using-ai-generation

Postal: Bullet Paradise developers Goonswarm have fiercely denied the accusations that they used generative AI to create elements of the game… and announced that they are closing down.

In a post on Xitter, sent to RPS after we requested comment on the story below, the developers write that “our studio was mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games, and every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation”. They say they’ve received a lot of insults and threats as a consequence.

“We’re truly sorry for the artists who put their soul into this and supported our studio, only to face false AI accusation,” the statement continues. “It’s tough to pour so much energy into a game and end up caught in the middle of an AI war by accident. We’ve decided to shut down the studio and end all future activities.”

The statement doesn’t mention the obvious financial impact of having a publisher cancel your videogame project. I’ll ask for more clarification.

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Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨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.

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- Rose_Thorne@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨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.
  
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  - calliope@retrolemmy.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨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.
    
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- zout@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Publisher's reaction looks like corporate bullshit to me to be honest.
  
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FaceDeer@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I guess this accused witch was innocent after all.

Oh well, the price of purity. Throw the next one in the pond to see if they sink too!

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Kwakigra@beehaw.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Here specifically is where consumers have drawn the line with the Postal series, a game series about doing mass killings for fun.

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- Hegar@fedia.io ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Multiple genres of games are about doing mass killings for fun.
  
  You know that bit when you get bored playing some open world game, go around killing everyone, then reload? Postal is That: The Game. Just without the reloading.
  
  Or that was how i thought about postal 1&2.
  
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- RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Mass killings in videogames don’t hurt real people.
  
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  - Kwakigra@beehaw.org ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You nailed it.
    
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MyDarkestTimeline01@ani.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I sincerely hope that Grand theft Auto 6 ships and people find generative AI elements in it. I hope it’s one of those games that’s so Blockbuster it tells you you’re going to either eat your morals or you’re not going to get that thing you want.

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Sina@beehaw.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
It’s pretty much guaranteed that many AAA games out over the past 2 years had AI generated elements. Though finding these is not plausible. Telling about separate grass or tile textures if they are AI generated or taken from the asset store, or god forgive ai generated assets taken from the asset store is basically impossible.

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chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
AI witch hunt strikes again

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- Son_of_Macha@lemmy.cafe ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Wrong terminology, a witch-hunt is a bad thing, this is just public opinion being against the job stealing ip copying tech bs.
  
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  - chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    
    the developers write that “our studio was mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games, and every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation”. They say they’ve received a lot of insults and threats as a consequence.
    
    This is a bad thing.
    
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