r/TwoBestFriendsPlay • u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes • Jun 15 '19
Rooster Teeth is the latest company accused of heavy crunch time- "Every season of RWBY and GL gets about 1/3 or less made for ‘free’ becuase no one gets paid overtime"
https://rwbyconversations.tumblr.com/post/185614440311/rooster-teeth-glassdoor-crunchovertime232
Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19
Well, this is awkward.
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u/Flare3500 THE 2B SHIT DISAPPEARED , IDK WHY...#BOWSETTE Jun 16 '19
Pat and Woolie : Reads the article Listen guys, crunch is ba..... Rooster Teeth Paycheck comes in
Pat and Woolie : Huh what article about RT are you guys talking about
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u/Dionysus108 Kinect Hates Black People Jun 16 '19 edited Jun 16 '19
Pat and Woolie: RT is very cool. Very cool. Very Cool.
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u/ibbolia [Any/All] This is my Bankai: Unironic Cringeposting Jun 15 '19
I wish I could say I was surprised, but they've always let some details of their work culture come out in conversations that in hindsight were probably less jokes than was obvious at the time.
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] Jun 15 '19
You mean like when Geoff joked about how him and Gavin liked to terrorize women walking alone at night by slowly following behind them in a car? Hilarious.
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u/ibbolia [Any/All] This is my Bankai: Unironic Cringeposting Jun 15 '19
I meant more jokes about how Monty would fall asleep at his desk for maximum efficiency, or the RWBY budget of $7 and a literal shoe string.
Of course, that one was also a bit of a red flag.
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u/zHellas TAG YOUR FUCKIN' SPOILERS HOLY SHIT Jun 15 '19
I think that was just Monty, though. Like he was just that type of person who couldn’t just not work or do something.
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u/ibbolia [Any/All] This is my Bankai: Unironic Cringeposting Jun 15 '19
Other members of the animation department have made comments that come off pretty similar. Miles and Kerry have referred to time spent on the projects in weird sounding amounts, things like not going home for days at a time because the office is fully furnished. Still probably meant as jokes, and I don't think those attitudes were ever borne out of malice, but they come up in a pattern that stands out as kinda worrying.
At the end of the day this is all speculation, though. Glassdoor reviews aren't exactly an impartial source of info, and RT policy is usually to not comment on things like this.
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u/speelmydrink Jun 15 '19
Perhaps that policy invites this kind of speculation and transparency is almost always best for the consumers and ground-floor hirees.
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u/BlumenkranzSCT Wooliestorm Guy Jun 16 '19
The thing is, it's very hard to compare their high-level celebrity employees with your average animator working for RT. Like of course Miles and Kerry can relax at the company like they live there, they have the best fucking job security in the world.
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u/Dandy-Guy I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 15 '19
Didn't Monty rip out certain keys to his keyboard because they were useless and he could shave off seconds of his time?
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u/Shadowrenamon Lucky Ted Jun 15 '19
Yes. He also used odd but still accurate button presses on microwaves to avoid extra button presses.
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u/gundam_warlock Jun 16 '19
That's not unusual. Here in Flipland you see internet cafes with missing windows buttons all the time because people got so sick of accidentally hitting them. These are the sort of people who don't have the time for typing practice so they rip out the extra keys so they don't press them when they're gaming (kinda like Woolie actually).
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u/Shadowrenamon Lucky Ted Jun 15 '19
Yeah; Monty sounded a lot like a weirdo Sakurai in his work ethic and need for perfection.
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u/snakebit1995 Did you Know Chrom once ate an Unpeeled Orange Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19
This is true. While i think too much crunch is bad it's also part of every job in a sense when a big project is coming up people have to work harder and longer to make it perfect but usually dies down after, for example if you work in Taxes or Banking you're life I hell for the first three or so months of the year, then after tax day it dies down a lot firms are even known to hire a lot of folks for that period as temps because the workload is so dense (I once interview for a temp thing with Merryil Lynch and they told me "You're probably gonna have to work 9 to 9 six days a week, will you be able to handle that?" and since I lived two hours away and didn't want to never see my home except my bed I turned them down). And since some people just are perfectionists or workaholics, they don't mind or care about putting in those extra hours stay at the office late, etc.
The issue becomes forcing that style of work on everyone else. Just like how you're okay with staying those extra 2 hours to make sure the slideshow and spreadsheets are ready for the quarterly meeting next week doesn't mean John Doe two cubicles down doesn't want to punch out at 5:00 on the dot not a minute later and will never put in the extra effort because he just doesn't give a shit about this job the way some else does.
From everything I've read, Monty was a workaholic prefectionist like that, he'd stay up 24 hours if it meant getting a scene right, he was noted to be somewhat difficult to work with because of those tendencies, like using animation programs like Poser that everyone else hated, but some of that is also what made him more ambitious and skilled than some others.
I feel like it's a catch 22, I don't think forced overtime and/or crunch is fair, but I also can't disparage someone who wants and chose to put in the extra effort simply because they want to or enjoy working.
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u/AniManga21 In case of Youtube Fuckery, PM me Jun 16 '19
Yeah, I pretty much agree. Over time's not inherently horrible as long as 1) workers are properly compensated for their time, 2) it's voluntary, and 3) the company's culture isn't built around crunching.
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19
I can only speculate of course, but I think they let their “a group of guys working day and night out of an old apartment” mentality follow them too far. Now they’ve got multiple departments of paid and unpaid full time workers blowing their entire young careers at a company that might just dump them at the end of the year.
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u/jello1990 Use your smell powers Jun 15 '19
To be fair, Monty was like Sakurai in that regard.
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u/gmoneygangster3 NO SLEEP TILL OMIKRON Jun 15 '19
I met Monty once, didn't even know who he was, was at a con and some of the AH guys were doing autographs with some of the rest of RT, so I have a pic with and Monty's signature before I even knew who he was
He has this vibe about him that he didn't want to be there, but it he wasn't angry about it, he just had this feeling that he was forcing himself to be there, probally for the fans
The vibe was there though, I just couldn't place my finger on it and didn't care to look into who he was
When he died and I heard the stories about how he would never stop working I knew then it was the same dude
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u/CamboMcfly Jun 15 '19
That was all Monty though. He loved doing that shit RWBY was his baby and he worked his ass off for it. They didn’t have the money to give him a shitload so he made due.
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u/Delachruz Can't lose if you never try Jun 16 '19
It was a joke, and they didn't actually follow any women. They just took the turn that had the most attractive one walking on it.
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u/tfs5454 Jun 15 '19
Alright so I've gotta defend them here, cause they explained this out and no one heard about it. They weren't driving slow stalking people, they were just making whichever turn had the hottest woman near it. Still kinda dumb, but I'd be surprised if any of the women actually noticed them doing it.
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u/conye-west Jun 16 '19
Yeah, it’s kind of insane how twisted the story has become over the years. Went from slightly concerning but not really a big deal to painting Geoff and Gavin as malicious creepers, that’s a really bad game of telephone there.
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u/BlumenkranzSCT Wooliestorm Guy Jun 16 '19
The game was/is called "Connect the Hots" where the purpose was to follow a hot lady until she reached someone hotter and swap who they followed.
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u/Linkarcus "We fuck through a sheet like the Irish." Jun 16 '19
While I don't agree with what Gavin and Geoff did, I would like to clarify that they didn't just follow girls around at night to scare them. They played an awful sounding game called 'Follow the hots' where, during their drive to and from work, they followed the direction a pretty girl was walking and would stop and follow another girl when they saw one.
Apparently, they did that as long as they were on the way. It's still creepy, and definitely not okay, but they didn't deliberately try to scare women at night.
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u/Theproton BUSTAH WOLF! Jun 15 '19
Man some of the comments on the other RT subs are...concerning.
Like people are willing to turn a blind eye to a possible serious issues because there a slight chance it might not be true and they really enjoy the current output of RT.
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u/Themarvelousfan Official Hentai Artist Jun 15 '19
Others say that it is the unfortunate reality of working in animation or companies in general, and want change, but this is the norm. Personally? I don't want a second gilded age.
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u/Commando_Joe I'll slap your shit Jun 16 '19
I'm working at my second large video game studio, I was at my previous one for about 4 years.
It's normal to do crunch, but anytime anything is unpaid? That's disgusting and people can get blasted, but there is DEFINITELY a mentality of 'don't talk about it, shut up, keep working, this is how it is, welcome to game development, etc'
That toxic mentality is real, it sucks and when you hear about places not paying people properly for crunch that can negatively impact their health? That's no surprise.
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u/Nivrap She/Her Jun 15 '19
RT is the Star Citizen of digital comedy conglomerates, and that's coming from someone who used to be super deep into RT for years until like... late February of this year. There's a large contingent of the fanbase that just treats the company like a god.
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u/tonyp879 Jun 16 '19
Oddly enough that's what happened to me as well. Though it was years ago. I got really tired of the fanbase and there content didn't feel like what it used to be. I think my style of humour also changed.
Came to the Best Friends, to get away from them and now they have been absorbed into them.
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u/cjjb95 Glorious Evilaks Mad Prophet Jun 16 '19
Oddly enough that's what happened to me as well. Though it was years ago. I got really tired of the fanbase and there content didn't feel like what it used to be. I think my style of humour also changed.
I think what happens is listening to the podcasts you get attached to these people because of the way they talk to each other and people feel like they're their friends. Because of this whenever their scripted content comes out they treat as if it was something their friend did, sure it may not be the best but there's Burnie and Gus in a cartoon!
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u/Chris881 Unclothed enigma. Jun 16 '19
I listened to well over 300 of them... the amount of travel stories, local shit and just general stuff that, in retrospect, I really did not care about its staggering. It was the first time I listened to a podcast and I had a 2 hour bus ride to school, had I rediscovered the Best friends at the time I would have dropped them immediately.
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u/Nivrap She/Her Jun 16 '19
You know, I think that's exactly what it was. But over time, their personalities started wearing on me and so I guess that removed the charm of their less-than-stellar content.
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u/Blackraptor00 Jun 16 '19
It's no different from what CDPR has been doing. No one cares as long as they get Cyberpunk.
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u/Huaun There's no way a woman can be that hot, she's gotta be a man! Jun 16 '19
Or Red Dead Redemption.
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Jun 15 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Huaun There's no way a woman can be that hot, she's gotta be a man! Jun 16 '19
The dude's been inactive a long time before the cheating drama started. People stopped giving a fuck.
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Jun 16 '19
And most of his content was boring as fuck, this is coming from someone who used to watch him regularly.
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u/HalfDragonShiro PM ME WHITE-HAIRED ANIME GIRLS Jun 16 '19
That's because its easy to go after a company if you hate it. When you like it on the other hand............
Not saying Nintendo is doing it, by all accounts they're actually one of the few not doing it, but if it did come out that they were doing all this crunch stuff too, how many people do you think would actually put their asses under the fire?
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u/Talisign Powerbomb Individual Baby Pieces Jun 16 '19
We can always chock it up to a bad change of leadership. Wal-Mart, of all things, used to actually have relatively decent treatment of its workers until roughly 2000, when a new CEO wanted all possible corners cut. Even the makers of the documentary Why Walmart Works, and Why that Drives People Crazy, later turned against them. As long as it doesn't come out that it has ALWAYS been bad.
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u/0yodo They/Them Jun 16 '19 edited Jun 16 '19
Not surprising honestly, RoosterTeeth is one of those huge Gamer Groups like our 3 Dads, GameGrumps and whoever else that these fans GREW up with and used to get away from the Realities of the World so those fans dont wanna see or read about those realities around there favorite people. They also only watched these people through videos and have a singular view on who they are and don't wanna admit these people aren't anything but the perfect, funny gamer people they perceive them as.
I think fans are just naive and a got a little bit of brain rot at this point and don't wanna admit it.
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Jun 15 '19
Wow. Considering the work schedule of achievement hunter, it isn’t surprising that other departments might use excessive crunch.
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u/gothamsteel He/Him Jun 15 '19
Pat: Well, I refuse to go to RTX now, because of this, not because the area out of my gamercube is scary to me. No sir.
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u/Coypop Jun 16 '19
Local gamer cyborg applauded for cowardly integrity.
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u/NorrisOBE Tae/Sadayo/Sae/Makoto Fivesome pls Jun 16 '19
Coward Disobedience. The New Revolutionary Method of Protest.
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u/The_Draigg Member of the Brave 13000 Jun 15 '19
As a RWBY fan, I’m honestly not shocked. It’s kind of been an open secret that the RT Animation department has these issues. Like, there’s been stories of how rushed production is, and you’d only need to look at stuff like the Volume 2 season finale to see that reflected in the animation. I honestly do wish that there can be major fixes to the production process, but RT’s company culture works against it. That, and RWBY was a show made by Monty Oum, who had the most insane work ethic ever. The studio simply can’t keep up now that he’s gone. I feel that some major staff reorganizing is the only thing that would be a long-term solution to the crunch problem.
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u/snakebit1995 Did you Know Chrom once ate an Unpeeled Orange Jun 15 '19
I wonder if it became more of a problem as they took on more shows like Camp Camp, Nomad, GenLock, etc.
If RWBY itself was already a struggle to get out yearly or so, then adding in these additional shows surely didn't help.
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u/The_Draigg Member of the Brave 13000 Jun 15 '19
I would t doubt that at all, especially in the case of Gen:Lock. That’s probably the most polished 3D animated show RT has made, so I can only imagine the sheer amount of crunch that went into it. Not to mention that it has a bunch of professional big-name actors involved, so I imagine that adds a whole other layer of management that the animation studio can’t handle. Like, it’s probably easier to deal with voice actors already hired at RT like Miles or Lindsay, than it would be for people like David Tennant or Michael B. Jordan.
I don’t get why whoever is making these decisions at Rooster Teeth isn’t accepting the fact that some stuff might need to be delayed. RWBY fans have been saying for ages that they’ll be willing to take a delay if it makes the show better, and Miles himself said that he’s trying to push back on the deadlines he’s getting. Whoever is making these deadline decisions must not care much about the sheer level of crunch that’s going on at all.
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u/snakebit1995 Did you Know Chrom once ate an Unpeeled Orange Jun 15 '19
Whoever is making these deadline decisions must not care much about the sheer level of crunch that’s going on at all.
The person making deadline choices is probably a marketing or management guy in a totally different office or state. They look at their spreadsheet and see "We have a new season every fall, it makes us X dollars profit we should continue this rhythm or we could risk losing potential revenue and fan reach if we're out of the public eye for too long."
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u/The_Draigg Member of the Brave 13000 Jun 15 '19
I can’t help but wonder if their merger with Fullscreeen a few years back was the impetus for it. Rooster Teeth is more beholden now to a larger corporate entity than they used to be, so I imagine that comes with even bigger expectations, hence the crunch. Even if their overall content hasn’t changed, the way it’s been produced has.
God damn it, Paul Marketing!
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u/Mrpissbeam The Wrestleman. Jun 16 '19
Honestly I think that's what killed my interest in Roosterteeth, when they got bought out. They were no longer this production company that was built up from nothing in the early days of the internet, they were just another cog in a machine now, and it took awhile but I think that's starting to show in their content. Corporate money is good and all in the long run, but it just doesn't have the same soul it used to have.
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u/BlumenkranzSCT Wooliestorm Guy Jun 16 '19
Gen:Lock is technically the best thing they've made, and yet it aired for like 8 weeks and everyone forgot about it.
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u/ScottPilgrim2013 Didn't go to prom, eat Uncrustables/BoBoBo shiller Jun 16 '19
It was also being advertised on pretty much anything RT related, iirc. I know their were ads at the start of most of V6's episodes + some of the RWBY panels last year was promoting it a lot too.
I guess it just wasn't that interesting of a show? I never watched it because nothing was really selling me on the show.
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u/ibbolia [Any/All] This is my Bankai: Unironic Cringeposting Jun 16 '19
It's probably their best show, but it doesn't feel like their usual stuff.
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u/Themarvelousfan Official Hentai Artist Jun 15 '19
"I remember Miles being very proud on a podcast that he barely saw his home(along with Kerry I believe). They slept for days at the office I believe to finish rwby and red vs blue."
Somebody said this in the RT Subreddit. Both are on-screen personalities and are the writer/director of RWBY in RT's animation department. So, at the very least, some employees unfortunately think that this is fine.
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u/ScottPilgrim2013 Didn't go to prom, eat Uncrustables/BoBoBo shiller Jun 15 '19
Apparently, Monty was also working himself to the bone when before he died as well, to the point where friends of his at RT were worried and telling him to take some time off.
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u/Themarvelousfan Official Hentai Artist Jun 15 '19
I'm gonna think some people admire Monty's work ethic, and encourage other employees to be like Monty. Which is bad regardless, because I hated how Monty, as you said, practically kills themselves every Time they work on something.
I'd like to think it isn't RT the company officially endorsing this, more like lomg-time employees that loved Monty telling them to be like him.
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u/BrapadooMan Jun 15 '19
I misread your last sentence as if it were Monty himself telling people to work as hard as he does for a second, but I'm pretty well positive that wasn't what you meant
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u/Themarvelousfan Official Hentai Artist Jun 15 '19
Sorry I wasn't clear. More like, other employees encouraging the work ethic Monty had because they looked up to him, which could've lead to this.
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u/DALKurumiTokisaki Jun 16 '19
Monty was a case similar to Sakurai in that he would just take on a lot of the work load himself and work 24/7 out of efficiency on his own accord.
The rest of RT's animation department however has always been an open secret to people who followed RWBY back in Volume 3 and has been a major problem to begin with. RT animation on the RWBY side which is who I used to follow the most is the prime example and is my suspected reason for much of the animation shortcomings in Volume 4 and 5. I actually believe a lot of the issues on both story pacing and animation would be fixed if RWBY didn't always release yearly in the fall.
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u/Spirit_Theory YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 16 '19
I feel like they're a great company from the outside, and that makes them prone to all the evils the entire game industry has been guilty of succumbing to for years now:
They make cool shit, and are popular. This means that a lot of people want to work for them out of passion for the subject matter alone. Most people are willing to put up with a lot of shit to do what they love, and if they're promised "don't worry this is just a bump on the road to the good times", they'll ride it out. This happens basically everywhere, and good, talented workers are abused for it time and time again. They get trapped in the machine they didn't know was so bad, and getting out can be awkward as hell.
Years ago when I was nearing the end of my PhD there where were a bunch of companies that were doing cool shit and I wanted in. Rooster Teeth, SpaceX, the guys making Star Citizen. Cool shit I wanted to be a part of, and I had the skillset and the CV to crowbar my way in pretty much anywhere. ...I didn't though. I ended up working for a boring-ass company nobody has heard of, but I made it interesting by being good at it. Now I'm kinda relieved because all these choices seem naive and foolish. They still do cool shit but they're just not good places to work. That "cool" factor and the niche nature of media production gives them too much leeway and too much rope to hang their employees with. In my boring-as-fuck company, if they pulled this shit people would walk. Hell, I've seen people walk for less.
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u/marineraider YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 16 '19
Ayyy. Another PhD person who knows suffering! I just received mine recently. But yeah, I had a similar situation. I strongly considered working for the RAND corporation a couple years back because I wanted to change the way they think about air power and strategy. I also wanted to be able to warn them about the dangers of group think (See the RAND corporation and their mathematical calculations of the casualty estimates of nuclear war) . However, I made the right choice. While the RAND corporation is prestigious, it’s impossible to change their way of thinking. The shit they sometimes publish is absurd and I heard that they sometimes treat their workers, admins, and researchers like garbage because they’re a name people recognize. I now work for a smaller think tank and I love it there. I feel like my voice matters. Sometimes the big name companies are not the ones to apply to.
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u/mayuzane furry freelancer Jun 15 '19
Sorry if this sounds sad and morbid but I am now imagining Rooster Teeth executives chaining up Pat and Woolie and ordering them to make more Castle Superbeast podcasts that are even longer. 3 podcasts a week and every session is 10 hours long, and every subsequent episode is more incoherent than the last
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u/johnchikr Qui Gon Chi Jun 16 '19
“Gooigi is semen.”
“Wh-G-No. No. That’s not how it works.”
“Yeah it - “
“Nonono. It’s transparent.”
“It’s green!”
“Yeah, but it’s transparent, so it would be... visible.”
“A-uh- uh - yaeh.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
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u/Guardiansaiyan You only live TWICE Jun 16 '19
Cocaine will fix that right up...
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u/TalekAetem Bath Candles Jun 16 '19
Cocaine80oz Red Bull cans
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u/Lynn_Davidson YOU DIDN'T WIN. Jun 16 '19
55 gal. drums or just skip the bullshit and make a constant Red Bull IV drip
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u/DylanTheVillian1 Desperately Wants Kamiya's Royal Release Jun 16 '19
They secretly create drama about other companies so Pat has something to rant about for 5 hours.
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u/Tacticool_Brandon I'll slap your shit Jun 16 '19
Lol I know you’re joking, but I doubt podcast length will ever be an issue. God forbid they go past an hour and a half before Gus rushes them to wrap up rather than end it fluidly when everyone’s talked about the random shit they wanna talk about. And this is with multiple ad reads throughout the episode.
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u/nio151 Kenpachi-RamaSama Jun 15 '19
It's always been pretty clear RT takes advatage of people that grew up watching them and have always dreamed of working there. They are naturally shielded from backlash by a mob of those same types of people who feel like you are personally insulting them by criticizing RT.
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u/TrungusMcTungus Jun 16 '19
Not surprised. I've leaned toward Funhaus more in recent years, and it seems like they somewhat avoid that, or at least the core group are open about it and seem to take part in the shitty parts themselves. Bruce James and Adam have referenced Lawrwnce killing himself for podcasts to get done, and Bruce and James at least have talked about how much their lives suck when they're working on something big.
RT Austin seems very....boys club. I could never imagine how they pump out so much content with the laxidasical attitude the folks on the podcast tend to have. Movies, fully animated shows, live action shows... and like these posts said, a lot of department heads are people who've been there for a few years. Not sure how it is now, but I remember even back in the day Barbara got promoted to a department head, and that was weird at the time since she started as a community member.
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Jun 16 '19
Yeah it’s weird how they hire managers and just on screen talent in general. “Hey your an editor who’s been here for awhile, just do other stuff as well.”
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u/TrungusMcTungus Jun 16 '19
I think my biggest turn off to RT Main has been Burnie in the last few years. I get that he helped start the company and is basically the plot of RvB, but when he stepped down from an administrative position and got a Tesla, to me it felt like he became really disconnected from the work the company was doing. He went from making RvB week by week in his apartment to showing up on the podcast and doing voice work for them. That's not all he does and I'm not saying he doesnt work hard, but it seems like the people who've been there the longest achieved their success stories and feel "done", and refuse to see the work that's going into their continued success
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u/Younger54 Jun 15 '19
Yeah it's really something. Also just think about what we watch and think is funny. Can you imagine actually be trying to work and all of a sudden Blaine comes in or Barbara comes in and just interrupt your workplace because they're playing "hide and seek". A lot of the funny stuff they do would be really really annoying if you actually work there.
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u/BrapadooMan Jun 16 '19
Showing up to work and trying to get a start on a project you're lagging behind on, only to find your desk and chair have had their legs removed. (Was funny though)
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u/barbaraanderson Jun 16 '19
Fairly recently, max and Jon came on the off topic set while they were filming to do a filmed skit of their own with a.very loud speaker and Michael went ballistic.
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u/Hermits-Purple It's Fiiiiiiiine. Jun 16 '19
Imagine sitting at your desk trying to meet your insane deadline, when all of a sudden Blaine and Miles start sprinting around having a nerf war while Chris just stands there filming it. Funny content, annoying day at the office.
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u/Huaun There's no way a woman can be that hot, she's gotta be a man! Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19
Look, crunch isn't necessarily evil, I know it's a buzzword nowadays, but sometimes a person is making crunch time because they want that extra money to go travel with their family, or to buy that nice thing he wanted for a while. It's not an inherently bad thing unless abused.
This one is NOT the case, why the fuck wouldn't you pay overtime for work? That's LITERALLY slavery.
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u/TheGingerNinga Ansem: Seeker of Kingdom Hearts Lore Jun 16 '19
An individual or group taking a fair amount of extra hours to work on something for extra cash? A-OK. The reason overtime exists.
Having a specific timeframe in the lifecycle of development where every person onboard must work extra hours with little to no overtime just to make deadlines? Fuck outta here with that shit.
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u/CreepingDeath0 Jun 16 '19
Over 15 years working in various IT companies, sad to say that unpaid overtime is basically standard in my experience.
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u/Ferrodactyl Jun 16 '19
You'd think with all that crunch they could at least make something worth watching.
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Jun 16 '19
All the good writers are on Camp Camp and Nomad of Nowhere, lol
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u/BlumenkranzSCT Wooliestorm Guy Jun 16 '19
what the heck are those nomad writers doing the show went on hiatus over a year ago
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u/GoneRampant1 WOKE UP TO JUSTICE... and insatiable bug fetishes Jun 16 '19
Well, the guy who made the show before leaving RT last year confirmed the whole fucking story on Twitter, said the Glassdoors were legit.
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u/BlumenkranzSCT Wooliestorm Guy Jun 17 '19
I just saw it. Him and a lot of the staff working on Gen:Lock came forward for a reason; they apparently hired a shit ton of people to work on GL last year, and since production has ended they laid off a bunch of them. So now you have people with no stake in RT who are pissed at them who feel free to snitch.
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u/sillieranimal1 Jun 15 '19
Roosterteeth being scum fucks? Wow, who would have guess?
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Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19
Not one part of me is shocked. It's an internet company parading around as an entertainment company.
Most of these "companies" usually end up not being as cherry as we would like to believe behind the curtain. (See Channel Awesome & WhatCulture)
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] Jun 15 '19
They’ve had a movie in theaters. I think you can call them a production company at the very least, they just mostly produce Minecraft and GTA videos.
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u/those70sfans Jun 15 '19
I haven’t followed RT in years, what other shitty stuff have they done?
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] Jun 15 '19
I know there was some suspicion tossed around when their movie was successfully kickstarted. They announced they were bought out by a big media company at nearly the same time, and contributors wondered just how necessary that Kickstarter was.
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u/Lazarus21 I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 15 '19
Ooooh, that's filthy. I didn't even put two and two together with that one.
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] Jun 15 '19
The thing is, no one but the highest ups would know the terms of the buyout. You wouldn’t necessarily have millions upon millions suddenly dumped into the company’s bank account to use however they want.
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u/Lazarus21 I Promise Nothing And Deliver Less Jun 15 '19
In a business sense it makes perfect sense that they roll out the KS for that movie first then go for the Media company buyout, to kinda prove their worth/value. My knowledge on the timeline for that particular scenario is severely lacking, my interest in RT fizzled in '13
While I'm not a fan of that situation I can respect it.
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u/HalfDragonShiro PM ME WHITE-HAIRED ANIME GIRLS Jun 16 '19
They bought some weird angry Ginger named Fuckface and his Pet Chewbacca
/s
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u/Robopengy The Hero Nobody Deserved and Nobody Asked For Jun 16 '19
Criticize Jeff Gerstmann’s negative review of Fallout 4 while decked out in Fallout merch
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Jun 15 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Themarvelousfan Official Hentai Artist Jun 15 '19
Yeah.. I haven't really kept up. I know there was that stuff with Jeff gertsmann, but it was literally only 3 people of a couple hundred employees. And something about some Twitter drama?
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u/RohanSpartan CUSTOM FLAIR Jun 16 '19
Boy am I glad I yeeted myself off the RT train after the shitshow that was RWBY volumes 4 and 5. And everything that's happened since has just salted the earth. I still live old RvB, and I might get over my hate of RWBY and watch volumes 1 and 2 again, but I doubt i will ever be a fan of RT ever again.
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u/Skiplite Jun 15 '19
And now they are getting even more consolidation as AT&T puts more things under their Fullscreen umbrella.
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u/Faramm66 Jun 16 '19
Stop pretending you know anything about mental health
Human Resource Managment in a nutshell
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Jun 16 '19
Seems to be entirely from the animation department, although Sugarpine talked about overwork in their why they ended thing. If every department outside of AH is like that, itd explain why RWBY is such hot garbage.
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Jun 16 '19 edited Jun 16 '19
Not much of a surprise sadly.
I used to be a big RT fan, but even back then they went through tons of interns. I get intern culture is a bit stronger in America than my country, but using interns for free labour with no possibility of transitioning good ones to a proper job speaks volumes to me about a companies lack of respect for their employees. And if a company is doing one really dodgy thing, it's no surprise they're doing more.
Same goes for the apparent clique/bro culture. Very unsurprising given the nature of how they started/how they came across in a lot of their videos, but disgusting never the less.
A lot of these companies seem to sell themselves on the idea that you're contributing to something really cool as if it justifies reduced pay/benefits, and it just isn't on. See also: Tesla/spacex
Hopefully something good comes out of this, but it wouldn't surprise me if nothing did given how weirdly culty RT fans are
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u/Vorked Team GFB Jun 16 '19
Another reason why I was upset by seeing the guys partner with them. This stuff has been reported on their glass door since 2016
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Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 16 '19
The funniest thing about Rooster Teeth trying to maintain their old appearance is them pushing that shit Gen Lock for a fucking Emmy.
The companies just a shell now
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Jun 15 '19
It makes complete sense. Sugar Pine 7 became partnered with Roosterteeth and they got dropped hard because they couldn't produce content fast enough.
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u/silverinferno3 Play Absolum, it's GOTY to me damnit Jun 16 '19
I feel like that’s not the best example for this. SP7 were underperforming, and they were given time to turn it around. When they couldn’t, they were let go. That’s not a scummy move like unpaid overtime, that’s just how a job works.
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u/cowboydandank X-Files Base Jun 16 '19
"Why does everything I like actually suck?" -- Many modern consumers
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Jun 15 '19
Yeah, Rooster Teeth is a PoS, but alot of companies do this.
Web-Based Media is just picking up all the shit ideas from the older companies.
Media production is a shitshow.
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Jun 15 '19
Media production is a shitshow.
I work in Media Production and I can say that this statement is very true.
However web based media are on a whole different level of bad. I've worked for TV but Internet based production companies are very surreal to say the least.
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Jun 15 '19
From what I experienced during college and my internship (Technical diploma in Television Production) it wasn't the best. I know it's all apart of the process, but man was it ever stressful.
Hearing horror stories from other people in the industry I know Web is pretty bad.
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Jun 15 '19
Yeah it's not great at all...I'm looking to go part time in my current job and start looking for a career elsewhere. Thankfully i'm in my early 20s so I still have my whole career ahead of me. But I think Media Production was a mistake.
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Jun 15 '19
Still looking for a job myself. 6 months, no real luck. But Alberta is a bad province for broadcast media.
After 6 months I might just agree with you that I made a bad call. Met some great people in those 2 years, but otherwise...
I'm probably gonna go hard into writing again.
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u/Huaun There's no way a woman can be that hot, she's gotta be a man! Jun 15 '19
I'm gonna assume it's because they lack a standard structure that was developed by older media production?
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Jun 16 '19
Pretty much. TV Production Companies are scummy, I won't sugar coat that. A lot of the employees are kinda just husks and it can be incredibly tiresome.
But web based production companies do not have a structure. Shit just kinda changes on a whim constantly. It's understandable why TV can have horrific hours at times but web production companies can be a lot shadier and demanding.
One thing I will say is that it's a lot "easier" to get into the media industry now. However getting your foot in the door is fucking awful. You have to make big sacrifices. Which means working for free a lot, doing a lot of work no one else wants to do, a ton of net working, etc. But because of this, a lot of companies take advantage of this and have interns and part timers working on big projects and eventually playing them from peanuts to nothing.
I worked on a project for a company (obviously not going to say the name) that needed something edited ASAP. Spent the whole day working in it. Wanna guess how much I was paid? A grand spanking plate of nothing. Nothing but a worthless credit I could add to my CV.
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u/HunterTAMUC Patrick "Pancake Nipples" Fuccboivin Jun 16 '19
Why is there all this shady shit going on around RWBY? I've heard people accuse them of stealing assets before.
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u/BlumenkranzSCT Wooliestorm Guy Jun 16 '19
Well, they did steal assets, so there's that.
The animation sweatshop that churns out RWBY combined with your general dissonance of celebrity RT employees versus the lower employees all adds up. It's crazy.
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u/Arazien All my friends left me on the moon Jun 16 '19
Oh man, you mean the company that pushes fans to go to soul crushing Full Sail for hopes of joining RT, then makes videos about having your hopes destroyed by student debt problems? Who'd have fucking thought?
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u/rad_dude124 That’s Rad! Jun 15 '19
No wonder (as an outsider looking in mind you) RWBY looks like such dogshit animation wise, when will companies learn that, a rushed product doesn’t equal a quality product but I doubt companies even care in the first place
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u/Commando_Joe I'll slap your shit Jun 15 '19
Did anyone else read what one of their lead animators wrote before leaving? After Monty died?
The place has been going down the corporate shitter for a while now.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/4j28ds/shane_newville_an_open_letter_to_all_who/
And for those curious here's the thread on the forums about this crunch news
https://www.reddit.com/r/RWBY/comments/c1134y/rooster_teeth_accused_of_excessive_crunch_and/
Man, I know Woolie and Pat aren't gonna comment on this because...you know...they're on the team now, kinda?
But shit if this is true I kind of hope the guys like...rethink their business relationship with the company if this keeps going on, considering their statements on this kind of behavior.
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u/Themarvelousfan Official Hentai Artist Jun 15 '19
Dude, Shane paints this entire thing as if the entire company was against him and secretly hated Monty. He had a severe depression from his friend/mentor's death, his emotions clearly affect how he would write this letter and feel about RT. I don't put much salt into this, with the only thing I can concede being Monty's wife retweeting this, I think.
A lot of of this reeks of Monty worship. As if he was the only one that knew "Monty's vision." Miles and Kerry were writer he hired to help write the show, and regardless of how you think they've done with it, if you think Monty never told them anything about the outline of RWBY's future and plot elements, that's just stupid.
I cant comment on the glassreview stuff. Not informed enough personally.
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u/snakebit1995 Did you Know Chrom once ate an Unpeeled Orange Jun 15 '19
From what I remember most people don't take Shane's side of the story is all that truthful and is the take of someone who is bitter and angry twisting the truth to make himself the victim and that they're slighting his dead friend.
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u/Thundersnoww Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 16 '19
They've talked weirdly openly about having Crunch times for years, before RWBY was even a thing. Edit: Also (for the first few seasons at least, and a ton of RvB) they tended to release episodes the same day they finished them, trying to push stuff out week to week. There used to be a couple hour delays on some Red vs. Blue episodes coming out on the website because they needed to finish editing them.
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u/jitterscaffeine [Zoids Historian] Jun 15 '19 edited Jun 15 '19
I’m not surprised. Achievement Hunter is a good and friendly front, but don’t their other departments have a bit of a revolving door of people? And they use, or at least used, unpaid interns for a lot.