I stopped watching anything made by their network around the time they started shilling fake boner pills and sweeping scandals under the rug. I never saw RvB but I came in as a fan for a while of Let’s Play and Funhaus, before they acquired it. I even contributed to First for a little while.
They had a lot of momentum in those days, but I think they tried to grow beyond their ability. Most of the new programming they developed was inferior to the lightning-in-a-bottle stuff they were initially built on. They tried to expand their business while hamstrung by their own internal limitations. They did suffer from some bad luck, but really, they mostly self-destructed in slow motion.
It’s hard enough to build an internet company based on algorithms and originating on someone else’s platform. They tried to navigate independently as long as they could, but really, when fans aren’t responding exponentially to your investment, you can either sell out or die right away. Props for twenty years of capitalizing on early internet fame. But to me, this is an overdue death. Basing your brand around being a dick was bound to have a shelf life.
I was shocked a couple of months ago when YouTube suddenly decided to randomly throw one of their videos into my autoplay-feed. WTF? They still exist?!
But it get’s worse. It was about Geoff screaming “The haters said we will die so many times! And we made it every time! And we will make it this time, too!” Didn’t go well I guess.
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
Thank you. That is EXACTLY what I was thinking. I stopped watching or subscribingg to anything other than Funhaus and now I am not vibing with the new set. Culture begets culture until you change it for the better.
Does this mean Tales From the Stinky Dragon is shutting down too? While it’s not the best DnD actual play, it’s still pretty great. And i still hold out hope that Gustavo brings back Black Box Down some day
Edit: nvm i read the article and the podcasts are staying
Yeah, I’ve been able to find a post on Twitter as their current situation which isn’t much, unfortunately. I know it’s really shitty to make this about me or even other fans in a similar situation but as someone who stopped watching RT something like 5 years ago when all of the big changes started happening and multiple new hosts I didn’t like, came back when F*ckface took over the Let’s Play channel and started making more of the type of content I used to love so much only for them to get shutdown (and not even know it was coming) sucks so freaking much. Hell, they’ve only just posted the first video of a month’s worth of content. It’s shit like this that makes me absolutely loathe the corpo scum.
I stopped for a long while after Adam and during the pandemic and I have to agree. Patricks chemistry with everyone is great, the Ryan lore well runs infinitely deep and they cast in general seems to be having more fun.
It’s a similar kind of content it always was but it’s making me laugh like it used to so I can’t complain.
Brought u this thing with Lawrence, Bruce and KassemG is also pretty excellent.
I haven’t watched their videos in a long time but I actually listen to a few of their podcasts… damn how wild. One of their podcasts posted on IG they’d try to keep going.
Damn, I remember watching RvB when it was still just cropped gameplay footage with the reticle visible on the screen. I have the Blu-ray box set of seasons 1-10 and the Chorus Trilogy. After Monty died everything kinda started going downhill. Final nail in the coffin I guess.
I was surprised they were still cranking out episodes. I watched one last year out of boredom. It wasn’t even funny. It was just like… CGI doing CGI stuff.
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.
Content creators from the early days when that was a novelty.
Some stuff is legit animation like RWBY, they made the biggest mechinima ever in Red vs Blue, a show made by voicing over video game characters controlled by a player, they made videos showing how to get Xbox achievements called Achievement Hunter, Let’s Play with people just doing fun stuff in video games, and then later podcasts with random stuff like people chatting about current topics RT Podcast, plane crashes in Black Box Down, and Austin in ANMA.
A bunch of other stuff too. But that’s a good summary I think.
deadline.com
Gorące