RIP: Rooster Teeth, digital content pioneer

[thewayne]

Warner Brothers strikes again, killing lines in hopes of shrinking a massive debt load that doesn't seem to go away. Pity the thought of producing good content that people want to see hasn't occurred to them. This time the victim is Rooster Teeth, the creative geniuses that brought us Red Vs Blue and RWBY, among many other things. Red Vs Blue started up before we had the World Wide Web and was one of the first internet-based animated hits. It was bought up by Microsoft for a while and I believe later released from their grip.

While Rooster Teeth is being shut down and at least 150 people are losing their jobs, Warner is going to try to sell Red Vs Blue and other properties, so there may be some meat to be picked off them bones yet.

https://www.indiewire.com/news/business/rooster-teeth-shut-down-warner-bros-discovery-1234960682/

Comments

[devilc]

The ATT/Warner merger has been such a fucking hot mess. DC comics has been gutted of just about anybody who knows comics at the top levels and has become a revolving door of useless dudebros.

[disneydream06]

I hadn't heard of Rooster Teeth, but that sucks for Warner Brothers to do that. :o

Disney is trying to trim the fat too, apparently.
They are closing down their Movie Club and they are no longer going to make their own dvds, they sold that to Sony.
Maybe they could make one less box office bomb and keep some of this other stuff. ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That goes for all the studios.
Hugs, Jon

[silveradept]

We knew the writing was on the wall for Rooster Teeth when RWBY went to Crunchyroll, and not just that, but as a premium exclusive. That pretty well said they were hurting for money and trying to find it in whatever way they could. RT has also been in bad straits because at least some of their people were being terrible to other on-air people, and that pretty well hurt the other parts of the studio as well.

I can hope that some of the IP will continue to get made in other places, possibly with better support, but it is the end of a era for RT and for the pioneering things they did in proving to the rest of us that they could make video for the Internet and make it go well.