RWBY - The Hindenburg on which Rooster Teeth rests its hopes, dreams and future

[The Demon Pimp of Razgriz]

You'd have to consider opportunity cost, it has a dedicated built in fanbase and the early Volumes are still remembered somewhat fondly by the old fans. Plus it's a PR machine, most shows would be tickled absolutely pink to attract the sheer volume (no pun intended) of attention the RWBY regularly receives.

RWBY's fanbase is next to non-existent now, outside a few diehards. Nobody else in the general public cares about RWBY, assuming they even know what it is. Whatever fanbase and goodwill that show had has long been squandered.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

For comparison (if we assume 30k/minute) - the most known expensive anime you could compare it to is Dragonball Super at roughly $6,100/minute - and it's pretty obvious which one looks better. Alternatively, Attack on Titan ($5,400/minute) or My Hero Academia ($4,000/minute) are other comparison points.

$30,000 a minute put it in a category all it's own closer to movies then other anime shows.

For the sake of making RT look as incompetent as humanly possible, I looked up the budget/minute of some anime movies that are visually intensive and clearly cost a lot to animate. A season of anime typically operates on a sliding scale of budget where less action-y episodes will cost fractions of what a high action episode, and movies themselves tend to operate on a much high budget because they want the full 2 hours to look amazing.

So, no concrete numbers, but most estimates I could find still kept shit at under $25,000/minute. There is not a string of words I could flow together to adequately express how fucking incompetent RT are to have animated something that looks this "Okay" at this budget level.

 

[Gorillion others]

For the sake of making RT look as incompetent as humanly possible, I looked up the budget/minute of some anime movies that are visually intensive and clearly cost a lot to animate. A season of anime typically operates on a sliding scale of budget where less action-y episodes will cost fractions of what a high action episode, and movies themselves tend to operate on a much high budget because they want the full 2 hours to look amazing.

So, no concrete numbers, but most estimates I could find still kept shit at under $25,000/minute. There is not a string of words I could flow together to adequately express how fucking incompetent RT are to have animated something that looks this "Okay" at this budget level.

The current animation itself looks like something out of the mid-2000s.

 

[Random Internet Person]

The current animation itself looks like something out of the mid-2000s.

And from what I’ve heard, that’s what people LIKE about it.

 

[Gorillion others]

And from what I’ve heard, that’s what people LIKE about it.

I wouldn't be so eager to believe that. Deep down, they know it's shit. Both animation and story.

Here is why they "really" like it. "AMERICA! FUCK YEAH! JAPS CAN SUCK IT!"

No matter how much they try to deny it, it all comes back to a competitive compulsion intermixed with pride.

 

[Trollblade69]

I've assumed they just like it because it has anime girls and it was freely available on Youtube, no streaming service or piracy needed.

 

[Random Internet Person]

I've assumed they just like it because it has anime girls and it was freely available on Youtube, no streaming service or piracy needed.

Nah, the hook was “Monty Oum, the man behind Haloid and Dead Fantasy, is making his own anime!”

 

[Trollblade69]

Nah, the hook was “Monty Oum, the man behind Haloid and Dead Fantasy, is making his own anime!”

I had never heard of that name when I was growing up on Newgrounds. My teenage self got excited for RWBY because I first saw its trailer when it played after the credits of RVB Season 10 and thought it looked cool.

 

[derpherp2]

Same writing staff? Yeah RWBY is done for. That's literally the most stupid choice they could have gone to. RWBY failed because of them.

And yes RWBY will be sold for peanuts. But peanuts by corporate standards is still a few million at the least

I just wanna see mulan beat the living shit out of someone using a toilet that turns into a gun why are they failing at that so badly jesus fucking christ.

 

[Random Internet Person]

I just wanna see mulan beat the living shit out of someone using a toilet that turns into a gun why are they failing at that so badly jesus fucking christ.

Because they've been trying to make a story that actually matters.

 

[blackjack101]

Was the animation really that bad? I have seen some comments on YT saying the early season 3d animations were much better and crisp than the later seasons, or how the fight scenes were a lot better in the early seasons then the later seasons.

 

[Sleazy Car Salesman]

Was the animation really that bad? I have seen some comments on YT saying the early season 3d animations were much better and crisp than the later seasons, or how the fight scenes were a lot better in the early seasons then the later seasons.

This is another case of "[x] would be excusable or even charming if RT were still a garage band indie company". There are many such cases. Once RT becomes this corporate entity with a dedicated animation department standards are raised, and when they start shitting on their fanbase (which is the thing that allowed them to become a Thing in the first place and was always ride or die) for having these raised standards then the substandard animation and the bad voice acting become a problem.

 

[Tanner Glass]

So, no concrete numbers, but most estimates I could find still kept shit at under $25,000/minute. There is not a string of words I could flow together to adequately express how fucking incompetent RT are to have animated something that looks this "Okay" at this budget level.

It's largely a "normal" thing in the space. Creatives often make for dogshit business people.

The people that started RoosterTeeth were not business people and never felt a need to re-examine any numbers. Monty Oum (who probably had cheaper costs) never actually ran a show before as a commercial product and would have next to no understanding of how it actually works and this info never was picked up by Miles or Kerry. The fact they likely let key people (Miles, Kerry, Barbara, who knows who else) double/triple dip into the money on top of VA drama almost certainly adds up as well.

For RWBY Volume 2 (at least) - it was let out that Monty was taking in at least $250,000/year as a salary. There are C-Level employees at small/midsize companies not taking that as salary. That's before anything else he was getting from RWBY's backend (merch sales, a cut of subs). It is a fucking insane amount of money to pay someone with an unproven product - plus whatever they were paying Miles and Kerry (but not Sheena, lol).

EDIT - Apparently the salary amount was undisclosed and the $250,000 was from the GoFundMe that Sheena helped herself to. RT gave Sheena (allegedly) a year of Monty's salary upon his death but I crossed up the amounts.

You can see it clearly written in how much they try to monetize RWBY (games, movies, RT First, CrunchyRoll Plus or whatever) that the only thought they had in their head was "(Money from Show) needs to be bigger then (Money Spent on Show)" and not once did they successfully examine the idea of making the core business more efficient.

RoosterTeeth died as a business because they never actually tied to be one - they just accidentally were one for a few years when Content Money was pretty big.

You see this in most Youtube Channels that are "big" - they do dumb shit like rent office space, hire friends as editors, expand into ill-advised ventures, and so on. Game Grumps is most notorious for this (with Arin having like 30 alleged employees for a Let's Play channel lazily cut into 10m segments).

 

[Useful_Mistake]

For RWBY Volume 2 (at least) - it was let out that Monty was taking in at least $250,000/year as a salary.

Google didn't result in anything for me. Can you tell me where this is from? First I hear about it.

 

[Dumpster dived waifu]

Was the animation really that bad? I have seen some comments on YT saying the early season 3d animations were much better and crisp than the later seasons, or how the fight scenes were a lot better in the early seasons then the later seasons.

No, the animation is fine at best. It's not jarringly bad, but it's also not standout or amazing. It's just fine. But for how much it costs, it should look infinitely better than just fine.

 

[Tanner Glass]

Google didn't result in anything for me. Can you tell me where this is from? First I hear about it.

I made it up!

(I confused RT paying Sheena a year of Monty's salary with the ~250,000 she took from the GoFundMe). Edited the post.

 

[Trollblade69]

Was the animation really that bad? I have seen some comments on YT saying the early season 3d animations were much better and crisp than the later seasons, or how the fight scenes were a lot better in the early seasons then the later seasons.

You have eyes, don't you? You can just see for yourself and make your own judgments.

 

[blackjack101]

You have eyes, don't you? You can just see for yourself and make your own judgments.

the 1st seasons were good, just trying to understand why there were some complaints about it earlier here for input.

 

[Trollblade69]

the 1st seasons were good, just trying to understand why there were some complaints about it earlier here for input.

The CGI is ugly, looking on par with Canadian CG cartoons from the mid-00s and made using out-of-date rendering tools because the lead creative was too lazy to learn a new program and forced everyone else to sink to his level. Multiple shortcuts in quality, vast disparity in production value between fights and not-fights, several times characters just teleport to places, all background characters are just 3D models with the black paintbucket abused, there's several shots you can see the rigs such as that infamous cookie-eating scene, a handful of characters have their character models stolen from pre-existing MMD models (and RT would threaten anyone who spoke up about it), that bullshit bow on Blake's head (plus having visible normal ears in violation of how catgirls work), and the strings on Penny's swords keep appearing and then disappearing in a way that doesn't look slightly deliberate. And that's just season 1.

 

[Random Internet Person]

Finally, new material.