Rooster Teeth was a web-based media company most famous for the web serieses Red vs. Blue and RWBY. They started out on April 1, 2003 with the very first episode of Red vs. Blue, a machinima web series that was based on, and used models from, Halo. Eventually, they got very popular and expanded their operations over the years. They’ve been acquired by many companies, who in turn were acquired by other companies, and in recent years RT somehow had the misfortune of being owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.
Apparently, Rooster Teeth has not been profitable since 2014. For ten years, they have been operating at a loss. Not even their big fan expo events have broken even. WB has been looking to sell RT since 2021, to no avail. Ultimately, on March 6, 2024, RT’s general manager Jordan Levin released a press statement saying that the company would shut down in two months. The RT employees were not aware of this until after the statement was released.
Rooster Teeth is also infamous for its workplace controversies and sexual harrassment allegations, but that’s a story for another day.
Even though I never was interested in Rooster Teeth’s content until last year, it’s pretty clear that they had a big impact on the early days of the Web. Shows like Red vs. Blue, RWBY, and gen:LOCK hold a special place in many people’s hearts, and it’s sad to see their legacy end.
Rooster Teeth’s final project was Red vs. Blue: Restoration, a feature film that acts as the series finale to Red vs. Blue, which was released on May 7, 2024. I think this is a fitting end to the company. Their legacy starts and ends with RvB.
Here’s to 21 years. Hopefully RWBY can get a proper ending.
So…do YOU ever wonder why we’re here?
It’s one of life’s great mysteries, isn’t it? Why ARE we here? Are we the product of some cosmic coincidence? Is there really a god, watching everything? I don’t know man, but it keeps me up at night.
I can’t believe I’m able to type that from memory 20 years later. RIP RT
Any idea what happened in 2014 to make it the last profitable year? Did they expand too much or is that when some of the controversies started?
2014 is when YouTube\Facebook turned on their algorithms that prioritized the content that people spend lots of time looking at, over the relevant popular videos it used to suggest.
Overexpansion, nepotism, the heavy drinking subsidised by the company, and as the other response mentioned, algorithmic changes to the platforms they used.
2014 is around when I had to stop trying to consume all their content, because they started churning out 4-12 hours per day (or so it felt).
They also hosted all their content themselves, and a fair amount or their content was only available on their website - and I don’t think that the First memberships covered the whole hosting expense.
I still remember when the Red trailer for RWBY first dropped. Was such an awesome moment.
In 2004 I lived in a two room apt in Brooklyn with three other guys. We were all dead broke all of the time. We set up a Can-tenna to steal Wi-Fi from the coffee shop across the street. I remember watching RvB videos, and just thinking it was hilarious. Once I moved I got busy with life and stopped watching RvB. FFW almost 20 years and I discovered Black Box Down and Tales From the Stinky Dragon. TBH I love them as much or more than I did RvB. I hope Gus and the crew can hit profitability and keep going now that RT is dead
The core group will scale down and make low cost content individually. Once the RT Podcast switched to the new crew, I switched to the ANMA podcast. Gus has said eventually that will come back. FaceJam is now 100% Eat, which I’ve started listening to. $&#@Face is now the Regulation Podcast. But it’s not on my podcast app. Someone mentioned Stinky Dragon continuing. Some of those will have video too.
I’m curious about the other members. I was a fan of Fiona Nova, who went to G4, then back to RT. Went through both shutdowns.
I was never a big fan, but I remember being in highschool around 2006 and these RvB videos blowing up.
Ashes to ashes as they say
I wanted to know how ruby ended :(
And I’m sad to see it go. Sad to hear about all the controversy as well. I had no idea. Jeff Williams made some awesome soundtracks too :(. Somehow rwby hit different for me. :(
workplace controversies and sexual harrassment allegations
Notably: separate. Unless I missed something. They were a handful of twenty-something dickheads who named the company after a rude insult. That went better than they had any right to… which is not to say it went well. Crunch and verbal abuse all over the place. But then independently, a decade later, the guy you medium expect did some penis crimes.
Anyway.
They really had every opportunity to churn out money. They were early on the Minecraft bandwagon and milked the shit out of that. They put out a weekly hour of high-stakes dicking around in GTA IV and then GTA V, and the algorithm loved them. They were relatively early to the podcast boom and absolutely understood the assignment. Later they did a bunch, on various topics, because they realized half their business was just dorks talking to one another. The margins on all that can’t be amazing, but streamers make it work… and they did also take up streaming, after pissing off a key personality who fucked off to do streaming instead.
For animation specifically - how did Camp Camp never get picked up by Adult Swim?
F**kface podcast is continuing (under the new name “regulation podcast”) and so is tales of the stinky dragon, both independently. Maybe Andrew will eat the pencil now?
I remember watching a lot of RvB. I always wanted to get into RWBY but never got around to watching it. Despite never watching them for years, this makes me sad.
