I always find myself asking how some of these early YouTubers (and other sites) create a company and let it get so bloated with people you don't need. I'm not saying you can't coordinate or do stuff with others; but when your content was fucking around with Machinima, Let's Plays, or whatever, you don't need the status of being a real and honest 100% adult business. Be stealthy millionaires and huge contractors for one-time/seasonal shit like merch or whatever.
It may be, because I'm on the outside looking in; but the less moving parts (people) you have, the easier it is to keep things simple and focused.
Also, the last good RWBY season was when they got picked for Blaz Blue Cross-Tag Battle.
I agree with you, but I'll play devil's advocate for what likely motivated them (in no particular order):
-The perception of bigger corporations and industry people for collaboration. A small group of very skilled individuals should make just as large of an impact, but when trying to sell your company to big time industry people, they'll have the perception that a company with 100 chucklefucks is a safer bet than a tight team of 15.
-Tax write-offs. Past a certain point of big income, it becomes an increasing balance where as you increase your revenue, you also are increasing your taxes at varying scales. There are lots of ways to mitigate and create tax write-offs to try to mitigate that. One of those is stuff like employee benefits and retirement savings contributions. More employees give more opportunities. RoosterTeeth obviously had that on their mind in lots of ways, including the annual "Extra Life" charity campaign that helped bring a big yearly tax write-off for the company as well, combined with the positive press.
-Legacy bloat and KTLO (keeping the lights on). RoosterTeeth was ahead of its time by building their massive (at the time) Roosterteeth site as an independent site, predating Youtube (as a video hosting platform), and Facebook/Reddit (as a social media site). Originally the Youtube channel was more of a secondary backup of what they posted on their own site.
While they were ahead of their time (and maintained the site as a secondary that could function independently of youtube's whims), maintaining their site demands a significant footprint in terms of IT and tech staffing. Given the availability needed, they needed at least a core tech team to at minimum KTLO, which given the original age of the site, must require an increasing amount of legacy jank work, and/or rebuilds and feature enhancements. For any rebuild, the new build team would need to be independent of the KTLO team, then some level of server management staff, etc.
Given the significant expenses involved, I can't help but feel part of the push of First membership was to drive people to the site, if only to justify what must be a significant expense to maintain, rather than just being a merch store and discussion venue that cost you tons of bucks whereas others just use a merch option and subreddit that don't cost them lots of tech costs.
Anyway, that last one is mostly a sunk cost on their part, but its hard to walk away from what made you big in the first place.
youtu.be
