Rooster Teeth

About

Rooster Teeth is a production company centered in Austin, Texas, and in Los Angeles, California that specializes in creating live-action shorts, animated productions and machinima, as well as podcasts. Since its founding by Burnie Burns, Gustavo (Gus) Sorola, and Geoff Ramsey, originally as drunkgamers.com, the company has gained international fame with a massive following online. On March 6th, 2024, the company announced it would be shutting down.

History

Rooster Teeth was originally founded by Burnie Burns, Gustavo Sorola and Geoff Ramsey in the spring of 2000^[3] under the name drunkgamers.com, a site dedicated to reviewing video games while drunk. The name was later changed to Rooster Teeth and officially relaunched on April 1st, 2003, because the original name was considered too "unprofessional" by sponsors and video game companies.^[1] The company rose in popularity with the release of Red vs Blue on April 1st, 2003, which was downloaded 20.000 times on its first day and by 2004 would gather a million views per week. Rooster Teeth would upload videos covering gameplays, reviews, machinimas, live-action shorts, etc on their website. On May 26th, 2008, the Rooster Teeth YouTube Channel^[4] was officially launched, with its early uploads focusing on Red vs Blue content. The channel would later upload other content from the main website.

By 2014, the company had grown to have over 90 employees and is located at Austin Studios. In November 2014, the company was bought by Fullscreen for an undisclosed amount.^[2]

Rooster Teeth Branches

Achievement Hunter

Achievement Hunter is a Rooster Teeth division created by Rooster Teeth Co-Founder Geoff Ramsey which focuses on demonstrating how to earn achievements in various video games. Since its launch on July 28th, 2008, the site has gained a massive online following with its official YouTube channel gaining more than 3 million subscribers as of 2015.

Funhaus

Funhaus is a videogame Youtube Channel and Rooster Teeth division comprised of former members of Inside Gaming from Machinima. After leaving Machinima in late January 2015, the group formed a partnership with Rooster Teeth as part of the newly formed West Coast branch of the company located in Los Angeles, California. Similar to their earlier works on Inside Gaming, Funhaus covers video game news, gameplays, live-action skits, Q&As, and podcasts on their channel.

The Know

The Know^[5] is a multimedia news Channel that was launched on March 5th, 2014. The channel focuses on informing the latest news in the entertainment and technology industry.

Shutdown

On March 6th, 2024, it was announced that Rooster Teeth would be shutting down. The news first broke on Roosterteeth.com,^[11] where members of the Rooster Teeth team wrote a memo describing the reasoning for the shutdown, citing difficulties from the rapidly changing state of the media industry. The post earned 230 likes and 560 comments in about 14 hours. A portion of the memo can be seen below.

Dear Rooster Teeth,

Since our founders created and uploaded their first video on the then-called World Wide Web in 2003, Rooster Teeth has been a source of creativity, laughter, and lasting innovation in the wildly volatile media industry.

We’ve read the headlines about industry-wide layoffs and closures, and you’ve heard me give my perspective and updates on the rapidly changing state of media and entertainment during each of our monthly All Hands meetings.

Since inheriting ownership and control of Rooster Teeth from AT&T following its acquisition of TimeWarner, Warner Bros. Discovery continued its investment in our company, content and community. Now however, it’s with a heavy heart I announce that Rooster Teeth is shutting down due to challenges facing digital media resulting from fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and monetization across platforms, advertising, and patronage.

Please note, the Roost team is not currently impacted by this action as the Roost Podcast Network will continue operating and fulfilling its obligations while WBD evaluates outside interest in acquiring this growing asset.

We have many questions to answer in the coming days and weeks, and the opportunity to work together to implement the best way to wind things down for us and our community. We’re working through what comes next in real time, and we will be as open, direct, and accessible as possible. Thank you all in advance for your patience and support of one another.

Let's take a moment to celebrate our 21-year contribution to the zeitgeist, advancing creativity and outlasting many of our peers from the early days of online video and digital-first content.

After the news broke, fans and those who were associated with the company voiced their disappointment in the studio's shutdown on social media. For instance, on March 6th, 2024, Twitter / X^[13] user and former Rooster Teeth employee @AndyTheBlanch posted some photos in tribute to his time working for the company, which received 1,400 likes and 50 reposts in under 10 hours (below, left).

Rumors also began to spread that parent company Warner Bros would be selling many of the studio's productions following the shutdown. Many social media users were not happy with the sudden changes made to Rooster Teeth and their favorite shows. For instance, on March 6th, Twitter / X^[12] user @Armand_Gman expressed disapproval of the anticipated sales, receiving 16,000 likes and 2,900 reposts in less than 12 hours (below, right).

Related Series

Red vs Blue

Red vs. Blue is a Halo series made by Rooster Teeth Productions about two opposing teams, Red and Blue, fighting a supposed civil war against each other. Though they are in conflict, they don’t take much of their work

RWBY

RWBY is a MMD-stylish web animation series about a group of teenage monster hunters created by Monty Oum of Rooster Teeth Productions which premiered in July 2013. The show details the lives of four teenage girls studying to become monster hunters in the fictional world of Remnant.

Online Presence

According to Alexa.com, The Rooster Teeth website is one of the top 10.000 most viewed websites as of April 2015, with 75% of their views coming from the USA^[6]. The Rooster Teeth Youtube Channel^[4] has gathered over 8 million subscribers and over 3 billion views in the 7 years after its inception. The RT Facebook page^[7] has gathered more than 769.000 likes since 2011. The RT Twitter Page^[8] was created in May 2008 and has since gathered more than 615.000 followers by April 2015. The Rooster Teeth Subreddit^[9] currently has more than 116.000 readers as of April 2015. The Rooster Teeth Wiki, which was created in May 2013, currently has 553 entries as of April 2015.^[10]

Search Interest

External References