With the upcoming release of Postal 2: Paradise Lost, Running with Scissors had been secretly working on releasing a mobile version of the original Postal, but today, we were told by an employee of the studio the game has been rejected from Google Play on the grounds of it containing “gratuitous violence.”

“[Google] yanked it right before release claiming its gratuitously violent despite the fact that they sell every gta game before 4 and carmageddon, call of duty, dead space etc.,” Running with Scissors VP of business development Mike Jaret-Schachter shared with Shacknews today regarding the ban. "Everyone seems to think POSTAL requires you to kill innocent civilians, POSTAL does not require you to kill any.  You advance levels after killing 90% of the hostiles in a level."

In fact, Jaret-Schacter even went through the trouble of confirming you could have sexual intercourse with a hooker in the Android version of Grand Theft Auto 3, and yet a game like Postal isn’t allowed. In fact, Mortal Kombat X was just released on the App Store and can be played on iOS devices right now and will soon be available on Android. “Talk about gratuitous violence,” Jaret-Schacter said.

Even though Running with Scissors has hit a snag in delivering an Android version of Postal onto the Google Play Store, Running with Scissors is looking for alternate avenues to deliver the game to those who want it, such as on the Humble Store and Amazon Appstore. “While this is disappointing for us, it won't stop you from being able to play POSTAL on your favourite Android device."

It’s unfortunate for a game like Postal to be denied on the Google Play Store just on the basis of it including gratuitous violence. Running with Scissors has every right to be upset by this decision considering just how much games published by Take 2 can get away with on the Play Store. Hopefully Google will reconsider their decision and allow a game like Postal to be made available with the likes of the Grand Theft Auto series and Mortal Kombat X.

We have reached out to Google to see if they have any information regarding the removal of Postal outside of their ambiguous "gratuitous violence" claim against the game and will update this story accordingly.

[Update: Jaret-Schacter informed us last night saying the Amazon has rejected Postal from being sold on its Appstore. He also supplied us with the following screencap of Amazon's denial email.

What makes this update even more confusing is the fact that both Postal and Postal 2 can be purchased on Amazon on the PC. Why they would deny the same game, but just the Android port, is beyond us.]

[Update 2: Jaret-Schachter informed us this morning Amazon reversed its decision and has allowed Postal's Android port on its Appstore.]