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Rooster Teeth Accused of Excessive Crunch and Unpaid Overtime- "Every season of RWBY and Gen-Lock gets about 1/3 or less made for ‘free’"

TheGamingNewsGuy

TheGamingNewsGuy

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Recently there have been accusations regarding Rooster Teeth and their use of Excessive Crunch and Overtime.

Rooster Teeth's Glassdoor reviews have recently made serious allegations against the company, with people who work for the company claiming that the company engages in practices involving heavy crunch periods, a resistance to providing benefits, eighty hour work weeks, a management team trying to justify crunch and unpaid overtime that, according to some, led to as much as a third of RWBY and gen;LOCK's recent seasons being made effectively for free.
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I am not going to post the full post because there is a lot and i do mean ALOT which you can see here:



What do you think, do you think these allegations are true because i have definitely heard stuff like this before relating to Rooster Teeth and their poor habits and this is not just one small review but multiple people accusing Rooster Teeth of this so i am more inclined to believe this.
 
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TheGamingNewsGuy

TheGamingNewsGuy

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Hobbes said:
I'll just say this - I'm not surprised or shocked.
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Yeah - there has been controversy regarding RT in the past and i've always had this feeling that not everything was right there. My issue with Rooster Teeth is that it constantly portrays itself as this whole Indie Studio when it's far from that now.
 

Deleted member 18944

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TheGamingNewsGuy said:
Yeah - there has been controversy regarding RT in the past and i've always had this feeling that not everything was right there. My issue with Rooster Teeth is that it constantly portrays itself as this whole Indie Studio when it's far from that now.
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They haven't been an indie studio for almost a decade and anyone who says they are is not being honest with themselves.

It's honestly a fucking shame they have this type of culture.
 
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TheGamingNewsGuy

TheGamingNewsGuy

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Hobbes said:
They haven't been an indie studio for almost a decade and anyone who says they are is not being honest with themselves.

It's honestly a fucking shame they have this type of culture.
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I know they haven't but they always like to portrayed it as such. Always trying to have their fans be like a tight nit family.
 
El Bombastico

El Bombastico

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Oct 25, 2017
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Jeez. Long gone are the days of The Blood Gulch Chronicle when it was literally just five or six guys with 4 xbox consoles linked together...
 

Deleted member 22490

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Hobbes said:
They haven't been an indie studio for almost a decade and anyone who says they are is not being honest with themselves.

It's honestly a fucking shame they have this type of culture.
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I agree that they are not an indie studio, but they do try to present themselves as one. Or rather, they rely heavily on the personalities to make it seem like a family and whatnot.
 
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TheGamingNewsGuy

TheGamingNewsGuy

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Helio said:
I agree that they are not an indie studio, but they do try to present themselves as one. Or rather, they rely heavily on the personalities to make it seem like a family and whatnot.
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Yep, that's what they do and it has affected the minds and opinions of their fan. If you insult Rooster Teeth you are insulting the family. This mindset has caused fans to become very defence about Rooster Teeth's actions. I am not saying Rooster Teeth is bad - i know friends who work with Rooster Teeth but i would be lying to say i wasn't at least some what aware that RT is not as perfect as it makes out to be
 
A1an

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I only every used to watch The Know but since they stopped making the show I don't watch any of their output, shame I used to really enjoy The Know.

With all this news going around regarding "crunch" in the industry they must have covered this, and you would think that they would be aware of how this impacts employees and also how the gaming community would react to it, and sorted this out well before it became an issue for their employees.
 
HammerFace

HammerFace

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I honestly have never liked Rooster Teeth as a whole. I think the first time I've ever become aware of them was when they were talking about how the negative reviews of Fallout 4 were unfounded. Ever since then I've never liked them.

I hope some change comes from their crunch culture being public.
 

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Not gonna be surprised when they defend their use of crunch, I'm sure there was a video where they talk about how crunch is part of their work culture.
 
Gamer @ Heart

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I guess this varies by state, but if you have had enough of a situation like this, could you legally go home at the end of a full shift and be done? I don't get paid OT, so I don't work OT? If they fire you at that point do you have a case?
 
Elderly Parrot

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Good to see a few Crunch culture protestors at E3 fighting the power
 
SnakeXs

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Gonna grasp at dome straws here.

They started out indie. Just a group of Halo fans. They got big, and bunkered down. Probably crunched a ton.

But they're paid dues paid off. They're in charge. Why shouldn't people that work for them have the same mentality? The same motivation?

Because they don't think they'll ever own the company. They don't ever believe they'll get a piece of the pie they're bleeding for, like the higher ups did.

And beyond that it's simply another creative industry taking advantage of "passionate" (read: exploitable) workers.
 
The Iron Yuppie

The Iron Yuppie

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Can't say I'm surprised. They got big quickly, their ambitions outstripped their ability, and I'm sure a lot of the people in leadership positions are "talent" with no managerial qualifications.
 
Gunny T Highway

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I am not that surprised. Under the facade of using the big faces in their videos making it seem like a fun, easy going place to work, stuff like this occurring is not shocking.
 
AnansiThePersona

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Wasn't Monty notorious for working insane hours on RWBY? Now Kerry does the same and that work ethic is then expected from the teams making these shows. And a new season of RWBY comes out every year as well. This has definitely been writing on the wall.
 
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TheGamingNewsGuy

TheGamingNewsGuy

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AnansiThePersona said:
Wasn't Monty notorious for working insane hours on RWBY? Now Kerry does the same and that work ethic is then expected from the teams making these shows. And a new season of RWBY comes out every year as well. This has definitely been writing on the wall.
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Torrian Crawford also works insane hours on DEATH BATTLE back in the day but that's because he is a perfectionist.
 
Acorn

Acorn

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Hate that companies exploit creators motivation to create art so much. Treat your workers right, without them you're nothing.
 

Slatsunus

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Nov 2, 2017
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TheGamingNewsGuy said:
Same here, hopefully this spreads and RT can talk about it
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Miles actually did mention it recently, not the specifics but he has been putting his foot down about insane deadlines.

He mentioned somewhere here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xtvq4xBbEg

Finding out when G:L 2 is due at RTX will probably give a good idea if there actually trying to fix it. If its coming at the same time as the first season right aw rwby ends then no way. If its actually delayed for a bit, then maybe
 
Brucey

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Metalingus said:
Not gonna be surprised when they defend their use of crunch, I'm sure there was a video where they talk about how crunch is part of their work culture.
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Burnie kind of shrugged it off when crunch was brought up on their podcast years back saying he was young once and always wanted to work and said something along the lines of it's not fair for him to get in their way if they want to work more.
 
Musubi

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Crunch is already one big problem in the industry but not paying your employees too? That' shit is just beyond fucked.
 
Ryan.

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As a fan who's dropped off from regularly watching their content, I can't say I'm surprised. I feel like ever since they moved into the studio lot a few years back and really grew both staff and content wise things started to change.
 
Conkersbadfurday

Conkersbadfurday

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Also a lapsed fan, but I'm not surprised. I remember them bringing up all the work they had to do to get their shows out on the podcast, and it always seemed like a TON. They had a bit of a "brag about it" attitude towards it, but it was their life and business. It never seemed like a problem if the founders worked themselves like that, but to have your underlings do it and then not pay them is absolute bullshit.
 
AnansiThePersona

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TheGamingNewsGuy said:
Torrian Crawford also works insane hours on DEATH BATTLE back in the day but that's because he is a perfectionist.
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Yeah when it comes to animation distributed via an online platform, they're more or less the pioneers of that. Them doing crunch or unpaid overtime back when they were super small was probably normalized in the company. I guess the fear is that people will stop caring about your animation if you wait too long to put it out.
 
Kthulhu

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Gross. I know crunch is the norm for animators but this shit is still disappointing.

Walker_Boh said:
Couldn't find the original clip:


Ignore the weird edits and camera zooms.
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I know they got a lot of shit of this (and they should have), but I was a bit surprised that it happened considering how many people say the exact same thing when their favorite franchise gets a bad review.

Moist_Owlet said:
How hard is it for a company to not be shitty?
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Being shitty is profitable, so pretty hard.
 
Khanimus

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Oct 25, 2017
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BladeoftheImmortal said:
I don't get why workers put up with this shit. Unionize
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You gonna pay the employees' rent for them in the impossible-to-determine amount of time where they won't be working in a battle to force management to acknowledge their demands? Or where management just turns around and staffs up with desperate fresh hires who will do the work for cheap without complaining?

They "put up with this shit" because as is, they aren't paid enough to afford any other options. This shit isn't easy, nor does it just happen. There's a whole lot of artists who cannot afford that battle.
 
BladeoftheImmortal

BladeoftheImmortal

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Khanimus said:
You gonna pay the employees' rent for them in the impossible-to-determine amount of time where they won't be working in a battle to force management to acknowledge their demands? Or where management just turns around and staffs up with desperate fresh hires who will do the work for cheap without complaining?

They "put up with this shit" because as is, they aren't paid enough to afford any other options. This shit isn't easy, nor does it just happen. There's a whole lot of artists who cannot afford that battle.
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So yay to getting exploiTed forever?
 
shnurgleton

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BladeoftheImmortal said:
So yay to getting exploiTed forever?
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A lot of American workers don't even realize that unionization is an option. Generations of disinformation has led many to assume the worst about unions. Even barring that, it takes a lot of careful up front work and buy in from other workers before unionization can proceed. And even then, employers can retaliate in many ways. It's way easier said than done
 
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