Update: Looks like Burnie came out of the woodworks and purchased the rights to Rooster Teeth! Even if they just archive everything (if they haven’t already) I’m happy they have the rights back again
I’m definitely a little late to the party to comment on this thread, but it blows my mind that any organization would pick a flight with SAG-AFTRA at this point (or the WGA, though that’s not relevant to THIS issue).
SAG has already proven they will hold out pretty much indefinitely and the effects of the joint SAG/WGA strike are still being felt in Hollywood now.
Is the siren song of AI so alluring that companies are willing to die on this hill? At its peak hype, I could see executives salivating at the potential savings; but my understanding is there has been pretty substantial pushback to projects made with AI (or tech with AI in it). I can’t imagine that these large studios think their potential savings would outweigh the potential losses in sales; but I guess that’s why I’ll never be a Fortune 500 CEO…
I wish SAG-AFTRA nothing but the best in their endeavor for protections against AI.
It seems weird that the union can put up a vote for a strike against an agreement and then almost a year later actually call that strike into play. So many things have changed, and I’m sure that contract has changed a lot since then.
I’d love to know what the final piece says that they just can’t come to an agreement. It’s clearly about AI voice acting, but the detail matter.
Going on strike is a last resort measure. People’s livelihoods are at stake when you go on strike. People won’t be able to pay their mortgage/rent when they’re out of work. The union has tried their best to negotiate on behalf of their members, but ultimately they made the call that negotiation was going the way they wanted for their members.
Right, which is why it’s put to a vote so that the members themselves can make that call. And that’s why I think the vote was a year ago with a contract that was probably quite a bit different.
I clearly don’t know the details and they do, but from the outside, it looks weird.
Good. I’ll happily see my favorite games delayed for this. AI isn’t a huge threat to the movie or TV industry actors, but it’s a massive threat to video game actors. It’s absolutely shameful when a handful of studios receive massive profits and they want to shortchange the people at the bottom.
This paired with the news yesterday of studios starting to unionize gives me hope. It’s about time, they’ve been taking advantage of their workers for so long, they deserve to see what that does long term. I hope they lose 10x from a strike and unionization vs just paying their employees fairly.
It’s not a huge threat to the movie and tv industry yet, but it could be soon, from writing scripts, to using actors voices and then likenesses, then eventually crafting scenes and episodes based entirely on prompts and AI its probably only a matter of time, unless regulation and Unions stand in the way.
It’s worth noting too that the games industry these days is bigger than movies, so I think this situation is a good thing for SAG AFRA to stand firm on.
I can’t wait to watch the YouTube “How did this get made?!” series on the upcoming AI voice acted games that bomb so hard that only angry YouTube personalities remember them.
They shifted over the years. From RvB, to Achievement Hunter, Rage Quit, and Let’s Play, to RWBY, to podcasts. It seems like the current move is just cutting out the non-pod stuff since that’s what is successful right now.
They had alleged abuse. I think part of it was the start up mentality of working long hours and expecting others to do the same even after they had become a stable company.
Some alleged slurs also from people who were a lot more comfortable than they probably should have been with coworkers. At least one of the people alleging slurs also definitely used slurs. May or may not be connected to how comfortable they were saying the types of things they did.
Honestly, that’s kind of scratching the surface. There were a couple predators that were ousted when they were caught. One dude was ousted when he went off the deep end with conspiracy theories and was too crazy to work with. One guy was an alcoholic but got better.
They seemed to gradually get better. But they really seemed to have a new controversy every couple of years.
Ok I’m pretty sure I understand most of who you are talking about, but can you tell me who the conspiracy theorist was?
And with the alcoholic I assume you mean Geoff? It’s funny, because he ultimately became one of the only few people I actually really wanted to listen to in the last 4ish years, I don’t think his sabbatical and ultimate recovery is much of a controversy, more just personal issues that he dealt with. He seemed to be one of the few that really still believed in the company.
Omg you meant Joel. Wow, I can’t believe he had been out for so long I forgot about him.
I thought I had heard that he was problematic when he was drinking. I figured I would at least mention it.
I’m glad he got better though. Once Gus stepped away from the RT Podcast I went and listened to all of ANMA. And now that’s one of only 3 or 4 podcasts I will listen to every episode of.
People on the internet: Oh my god, they were my childhood, I will miss them so much, they were like family and friends whom I loved and talked to me everyday and made me laugh.
People who actually worked on the place: Most toxic environment I’ve ever worked in, got bullied, harassed and physically assaulted by misogynist, racists, sexists hooligans everyday, management encouraged them and frequently joined on.
oh, people on the internet know. The people who don’t know are the ones who disengaged a long time ago. I stopped watching years ago and can’t be bother to keep up with every piece of drama that they put out.
Kovic pranced around naked in the office on cam with a girl he was actively cheating on his wife with.
and Ryan manipulated emotionally vulnerable people into sex to cheat on his wife with. One of which was 17, but iirc she admitted about lying about her age, So while Ryan was a predator, he wasnt a child predator iirc.
These two were just the tips of the iceberg. Roosterteeth has been problematic since damn near the start.
One of their early advertisers was “Alpha Brain”, some sugar pill that was supposed to make you think better to game better. Pure pseudoscience junk.
Much later they started shilling for an online prescription mill to their young audience, and in typical roosterteeth fashion. They got really super pissed off at being called out about it, then had geoff come out and try to twist the valid criticism into an attack on his miraculously convenient Erectile Dysfunction.
They also had MASSIVE issues with bigotry behind the scenes, Which IIRC is why Micah Burton and KDin got the fuck out of dodge. (I strongly suspect that Gavin was one of the worst about this, judging from edits early videos made around him and just my pure supposition, I can totally see him being the kind of person to drop the hard R in casual conversation without warning, and think its a laugh).
Also they spent years exploiting fans for free/low cost labor. Not just at expos and events, but behind the scenes in their animation department.
and anytime there was valid criticism about anything they did, They’d spend an entire post/podcast/etc railing against their “idiot” fans for not knowing better… I think at one point, someone… maybe burnie? told all the old, diehard, complaining fans to fuck off and that the can be replaced with new fans?
Which really turned out well, considering they’ve been floundering for years before the guillotine finally came down.
This is just the shit I can remember. Theres a whole plethora more of bullshit that Roosterteeth has done. Sucks for the behind the scene not-asshole folks to be losing their jobs, but RT deserves its ignominious death.
edit This is all to the best of my recollection, If I have some small details wrong let me know so I can correct.
Aww, Gav’s racist? I hope not, but I can see how someone on staff could be with how quickly Burton came on and left. Unfortunate, I liked her when she was on.
I got no hard evidence, largely cause they edit the shit out of the videos and arent dumb enough to say it in public, but there have been off hand comments referencing gavins awfulness behind scenes and shit and there was one video where they were doing a LOT of editing around what cavin was saying (I think it was an AWHU from a very long time ago, like pre-ryan long ago), that I would 100% put money on the fact that… like I said, he not only says the hard R, he says it with laughter and glee.
and hes probably not the only one, I just think hes the most likely.
They got really super pissed off at being called out about it, then had geoff come out and try to twist the valid criticism into an attack on his miraculously convenient Erectile Dysfunction.
It’s a real bummer that we’ll never get the conclusion to RWBY after 9 volumes. Even if the quality has been on a steady decline since volume 3, and volume 9 itself was a fucking joke, I’d still prefer to see the story wrapped up. I was mostly just in it for Jen Taylor though, so hopefully she does something else awesome.
Man I’m glad I stopped watching after volume 3 then. I remember thinking that the early seasons weren’t great aside from some action sequences, and that maybe once they got the ball rolling they could do the story more justice. But it needed to get better after V3, not worse lol.
Also isn’t who the head of discovery was now the head of the merged company? He probably wants to keep that name but can’t get rid of Warner Bros because of brand recognition
deadline.com
Aktywne