Rooster Teeth, home of Red Vs. Blue and RWBY, shutting down after 21 years

Enlarge / Near the height of its powers in 2018, Rooster Teeth’s annual RTX conference was drawing more than 62,000 people to Austin, Texas, each year. (credit: Nathan Mattise)

Rooster Teeth, a studio that pioneered machinima with its Red vs. Blue series and went on to develop a fandom-focused stable of shows, videos, and podcasts, is being shut down by parent company Warner Bros. Discovery.

Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) was unsuccessful in trying to sell the company as a whole, according to a company memo obtained by Variety (and later published on Rooster Teeth’s site). Rooster Teeth’s general manager pinned the closure on “challenges facing digital media resulting from fundamental shifts in consumer behavior and monetization across platforms, advertising, and patronage.”

WBD is still looking to sell certain Rooster Teeth series’ backlogs and rights, including RWBY, Red vs. Blue, and Gen:Lock, an animated mecha series backed by actor Michael B. Jordan. WBD is also looking to offload the company’s Roost podcast network.