Sad news for fans of internet comedy everywhere: Rooster Teeth is closing down.
On March 6, 2024, the legendary digital content production company Rooster Teeth announced that it will begin shutting down its operations over the next few months and will be shuttering its doors permanently. The company had been producing massively popular content for 21 years, starting all the way back on April 1, 2003.
The news is a bit of a shock, as Rooster Teeth was acquired by Warner Bros. Discovery fairly recently, in 2022. This acquisition was part of a larger consolidation from the company Fullscreen, which closed down in 2021.
As reported by Deadline, Jordan Levin, the general manager of Rooster Teeth, sent out an internal memo that read as follows:
“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,”
Although the company will close, Rooster Teeth content already in the pipeline will still be released. The Roost Podcast Network will also continue during this process. An upcoming Rooster Teeth movie will also release during this time.
Though we don’t have full confirmation of why Rooster Teeth is closing, some outlets report falling viewership over time as the reason. According to Axios, Rooster Teeth’s subscription service experienced a hard drop from 225,000 subscribers to just 60,000. Employee count is also down from 400 to just 150, all of which will be laid off once the closure is complete. The next step in the closure is the sale of the entire Rooster Teeth catalog, which includes RWBY, Red vs. Blue, Gen:Lock, and more.
Rooster Teeth was founded in 2003 by founders Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, Geoff Ramsey, Jason Saldana, Gus Sorola, and Joel Heyman while at college. The original idea was to make humorous content aimed at a gamer demographic. The name Rooster Teeth is a reference to a Red vs. Blue joke meaning “cockbite.”
Rooster Teeth’s most well-known project is Red vs. Blue, which established them as a heavyweight in digital content creation. Red vs. Blue launched on April 1, 2003, and is a parody based on the popular video game series Halo, and follows two teams, Red and Blue. Both teams engaged in a civil war against each other, often mimicking the game modes of Halo, like capture the flag or deathmatch.
Currently, there are 18 seasons of Red vs. Blue and over 338 episodes. The series finale is set to release sometime this year.
Of course, no discussion of Rooster Teeth is complete without mentioning one of the biggest shows to come from the company: RWBY. RWBY, which was first released in 2013, is a 3D-animated webseries created by Monty Oum and produced by Rooster Teeth. The show is very anime-inspired and is centered around the world of Remnant and students of Beacon Academy.
Team RWBY, made up of Ruby Rose, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long, and Weiss Schnee make up the main cast. These four girls, along with other students at the academy, undergo rigorous warrior training to fight back against the Creatures of Grimm. Since its release, RWBY has gone on to be a major pop culture hit with a dedicated fan following.
Rooster Teeth has also had its own string of controversies in the past. As we’ve talked about before, the company swiftly dropped Vic Mignogna in 2019, after sexual harassment allegations came out. Rooster Teeth was also accused of fostering poor work environments filled with toxicity and racism.
Rooster Teeth’s closing is a major blow to digital content creation, the aftermath of which could mean bad business for similar content creators.
(featured image: Rooster Teeth/Warner Bros. Discovery)
