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Postal Wins Court Case Brought by USPS
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out a press release announcing Postal developer Running With Scissors has been ruled victorious in a court case brought by the United States Postal Service. This seems to be the culmination of a trademark suit which began in 1997 after the release of the original Postal, as the USPS commented "All of us at the Postal Service have a sense of humor, but there is nothing funny about your game 'Postal'", and then tried to prove the Postal Service has a proprietary use of the word 'Postal'. Running With Scissors have fun with this legal resolution: "With unlimited financial resources comes unlimited ego. POSTAL and POSTAL 2 represent everything the USPS isn't: a successful private enterprise that will never have to rely on an irrevocable government contract to keep its pockets perpetually lined with cash."
successful private enterprise ... crap
Now I don't think anyone that has looked into Postal 2 at all would call it successful, (Read this review
But I suppose it is successful at being a simulation of the USPS, that is
redune.com: The World 3.2 Megapixels at a time
I don't know which is lamer, the game Postal or the US Postal Service for trying to bring a lawsuit...
Although I would like to point out that the US postal service has much more utility. You can use any mailbox, and they'll get it there for you.
It's kind of like a game in itself, like you know, you try not to use the same mailbox for any letter. Like you could just put your bills in the mailbox in front of your house, but that's boring! For fun, how about mailing your gas bill in the one in the mailbox in front of the supermarket, your electric bill in the mailbox in front of the bank, etc etc. The fun never stops! And the mail still gets there, incredibly, no matter which box you choose!
Once you've done that around your town for a few weeks, you're ready for the big fun. It's time to take a road trip...where? It doesn't matter! North, South, East, West....drive 900 miles and mail a different bill in every town you come across! Why, last Christmas, I mailed my utility bills (due in Texas) from Washington State! And they got there! Amazing, and just a testament to the hardworking men and women who work hard to bring you the absolute uniformity of those true-blue boxes, all marked with "US Mail" and just a sprinkle of magic.
Thanks, US postal service, for making us laugh about love.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
Is it worth it? I saw it in the store yesterday and was wondering.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Perhaps they could show that The New TNN (SpikeTV) has no connection to Spike Lee, and that would help move the case along.
And, yes, I know that Spike Jonez has joined the fray on TNN's side, which is also good news for the "good" folks at Viacom.
I guess Mr. Lee needs something to do during the Knicks' offseason (wait a minute, it looks like the offseason even when the Knicks are playing!...)
With unlimited financial resources comes unlimited ego. POSTAL and POSTAL 2 represent everything the USPS isn't: a successful private enterprise that will never have to rely on an irrevocable government contract to keep its pockets perpetually lined with cash.
christ, this is a little over-the-top isn't it? For one thing, I have no idea what this piss-ant company is or what Postal is.. apparently it's a game? I do know what the US postal service is. Mailboxes on every corner, daily mail delivery, decent prices, and decent service (in my experience anyway).
The USPS' pockets are not "perpetually lined with cash". The USPS is having problems with cash in fact. Congress has been very unwilling to do anything to help them because of the current "private enterprise trumps all" mentality.
Oh well, gotta do something to draw attention to yourself I guess. PS: be sure to thank the government for the government-enforced copyright monopoly that let's you have that successful private enterprise in the first place.
as anybody who works for the post office can tell you there's not a lot of arrogant pride around there. Our current president wantts to take the USPS and turrn it into a private business, effectively killing the perpetuation of consistent and federally mandated service at regulated prices.
As for a shitty company that makes even shittier games....well......
The game Postal was named such so as to be like the phrase "going postal", which generically refers to getting angry to the point of snapping, sometimes resulting in violence.
The term stemmed from a rash of violent incidents in which postal workers came into their office (their post office) and would shoot up the place - sometimes due to inane stress levels and buracracy, other times because of being fired.
Why this happened mostly in post offices is anyone's guess, but the aforementioned buracracy, the pre-email volumes of mail causing stress, and the fact that since it was a government institution, striking was illegal.
Ergo, the game Postal took its name from a slang term, which took its name from the office where workplace violence was more or less common, and the reasons stemmed from the USPS themselves.
In short, it's the USPS' fault that the game got named that way. This is no different than Google trying to sue for the use of the slang term "google", except that Google's repsonse time is quicker. Oh, and no one gets killed when you go google.
Schnapple
Running With Scissors...
OK, here's the real unvarnished truth. Your games suck ass. Really. If you picked 20 random postal workers from the thousands that the USPS employs, they could figure out a better way to make the "games" you call Postal and Postal 2. They're crap. Get over yourselves.
You're right about you guys and gals being everything the USPS isn't. They do a job you whiny, pasty faced, losers wouldn't EVER want to do, and do it better than just about every other organization on the PLANET that does what they do. Get a life, get a clue, and get over yourselves.
No one likes you. Go home.
does anyone remember the fact that only months after this suit was filed, more(CNN December 1997) than (CNN September 1997) one postal worker opened fire on his co-workers?
If "going postal" has made it into the dictionary, like "D'Oh!" has, and presumably "blog" will, if it already hasn't. The the USPS's trademark is already too diluted for them to complain.
Of course, the reason for the name choice in the first place is ironic. I guess the USPS thought it was time to "go postal" on RwS.
The USPS does a good job overall, but as the article said, they are financed as much as necessary no matter how efficient they are.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
They could change the name of this game to "Unix". Or even Linux. No one ever sues over anything called Linux or Unix, do they?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Forget what they say about it being vile and violent and all that, its just a very poorly designed piece of crap game. Not worth the 2 dollars I paid for it. Not even worth its value as a coaster.
Every time some (half) wit chimes in with that comparison, it pisses me off.
& oe =UTF-8&q=coffee+spill+lawsuit+mcdonalds&spell= 1
See, McDonnolds used to keep their coffee just below boiling. REALLY FUCKING HOT. No where near a temperature where you could actually drink it. This was policy. Their thinking was that people at the drive through were less likely to drink the coffee right away, so the hotter it was, the better.
Okay, but see, people tend to hold their drinks in their croches. I've done it. And when nearly boiling coffee is spilled on your pink parts it can do you serious, long term damage. Mr Happy doesn't like second and third degree burns.
So McDonnalds had already lost Many of these cases (no, I don't know how many). There was a legal precedent that had been set. Burn yourself, McDonnalds gives you some money.
The point of the price tag on that particlar lawsuit is that the only way to get McDonnalds to actually change their policy was to make it too expensive to keep things as they were.
So you jack the suit into the roof just to get the attention of this corporate monolith.
From what I heard (and it's just a rumor) the lady took most of the money and handed to some burn victim charity.
A little poking around revealed that some of what I read was right, some was not:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8
None of the linked pages say what happened to the money that was awarded, though the two I looked at agreed that the final sum was far less than the 2.7 million dollars of the original decision.
Potential 3rd degree burns on your crotch, as company policy. To hell with that.
Fooz Meister
Let's talk about monopoly:
US postal service can only deliver 1st class mail,
exempt from property taxes, federal gas taxes,
state taxes, management gets bonuses. And if
business is bad, well just raise the rate.
Exactly what other company can you go to if you want to mail your letter
F-ing nowhere!
So coffee temperature should be regulated by the govermnemt? Coffee is SUPPOSED to be hot. People like it that way. How many lawsuits will it take to bring coffee down another 20 degrees just so irresponsible people can be reckless and not worry about spilling dead cold coffee on their lap?
Our precious liberties are going down the drain lawsuit by lawsuit..
This is offtopic, but others seem to want to express how crappy Postal 2 was, so I will add in my $.02 and offer a differnt opinion.
I kinda liked Postal and Postal 2. Now I am not saying by any means that they were fantastic games, but I do like them. Honestly playing Postal 2 was some pretty decent stress relief. I do have to say that the game got a bit boring and repetative after Wed (each level in the game is based on days of the week). Postal and Postal 2 are for people who don't really care about a story line, don't really care about why your doing it. Its for those who want some dark humor and some stress relief.
If I had some recommondations for RWS's next Postal based game. Try to do a bit more than just a mod of a current game (Postal 2 was based off the Unreal 2 engine IIRC). It seemed rather limited in the violence (been covered in slashdot). Take Sodier of Fortune (the first one), plenty voilence in that, shoot someone in the head with a shotgun, their head explodes (sometimes half of it). Postal 2, shoot a guy in the head and he still stands, finally kill him and he is still intact (yeah yeah, "too much violence in the world", blah blah). Its the minor details with this stuff. It just felt like Postal 2 was a mod done by some professional programmers in about 4-5 months.
RWS, just remember for the next game... details, details, details. Other than that, it was fun, good graphics, lots of dark humor (still have to laugh at how much quicker people would puke when you pee'd on them with Gonorrhea, as opposed to when you didn't have Gonorrhea).
So mod me down, do what ever, just remember that this is my opionon, and I am in no way trying to inflict it on others.
BTW, Gary Coleman kicks ass!
E.
Never rub another man's rhubarb - The Joker
Well I don't know about you, but I'm not sure 2.7 million would be enough to cover 3rd degree burns to Mr. Happy.
Makes me cringe just thinking about it.
Fooz Meister
US postal service can only deliver 1st class mail
Huh? No, they have many types of mail they can deliver.
Exactly what other company can you go to if you want to mail your letter
F-ing nowhere!
No, you can use Fed Ex, UPS, or any private courier. However, you will pay much, much more. I know, I've had letters fed-exed before.
So coffee temperature should be regulated by the govermnemt?
The government didn't regulate anything. McDonalds lost a civil lawsuit.
You might also like dumping large amounts of salt on your backyard, but if that salt ruins my lawn, I can sue you. This doesn't mean the government is regulating anything. It simply means I can sue you if I feel you are fucking up my yard.
You are hereby awarded a 20,000 degree cup of coffee plasma for being too stupid to understand the difference between hot-enough-to-taste-good and hot-enough-to-give-3rd-degree-burns (and note that there are two unmentioned degrees in the middle).