About Rooster Teeth



  • Rooster Teeth is a production studio based in Austin, TX responsible for some of the most watched and celebrated online series ever. The company ignited an Internet revolution and helped redefine contemporary animation when it created Red vs. Blue, longest-running web and American science fiction series in history. Rooster Teeth also produces the globally acclaimed animated show RWBY, the first western anime series to be distributed in Japan, the comedy gamer series Immersion, a reality format that brings video game theory to the real world, the chart-topping RT Podcast, and hilarious live action shorts such as Million Dollars, But… and Social Disorder. With a massive global footprint of more than 20 million subscribers to its YouTube network, 3 million unique monthly visitors to RoosterTeeth.com and 1.8 million registered community members, Rooster Teeth has one of the most active and engaged fan bases in the world. In 2011, Rooster Teeth expanded into live events with RTX, an annual gaming and Internet convention held in Austin, TX, which started as a fan event for 400 people but quickly grew to attract more than 40,000 attendees from around the world in 2015. Rooster Teeth is set to launch its first international live event in January 2016 with RTX Australia. Recently, the company broke Indiegogo crowd funding records after rallying its dedicated fan base for Rooster Teeth's first feature film, Lazer Team, which raised $2.48M and is currently preparing for a global release. In addition Rooster Teeth operates the popular online gaming destinations Achievement Hunter, Funhaus, and ScrewAttack. In November of 2014, Rooster Teeth became a subsidiary of Fullscreen, Inc., a global youth media company that develops online creators and produces multi-platform entertainment experiences.

  • To completely tell the story, I'll need to go back a few years.

    The mid 90s were a confusing time for our nation. Being politically correct was en vogue, Madonna was just beginning to show the first signs of old age, and three sub-standard students met on the campus of the University of Texas At Austin. Realizing that their grades would no doubt keep them out of any of the higher paying jobs the world had to offer, Burnie Burns, Matt Hullum, and Joel Heyman began to explore other ideas. A seed was planted, and an independent movie was born. Burnie and Matt (being the ugliest of the three) wrote and directed the film, while the much more aesthetically pleasing Joel starred in it. It was called The Schedule and centered around a regular Joe who got stuck with the unfortunate duty of collecting souls for Death, the lowest-paying employer of them all. They trio toured the film festival scene, and encountered some success. Unfortunately, as their friendship grew, so did other feelings. As love triangles usually do, their relationship ended in shambles. Joel, unable to handle the complicated feelings and emotions, fled to Los Angeles to further pursue a career in acting, the other lowest-paying job of them all. Matt was torn, but decided to follow his heart (i.e., Joel), and ended up in LA as well. Still too ugly for acting, he began a career in Hollywood doing visual effects. He also began the long process of healing and growing said relationship with Joel.

    Burnie was crushed. To deal with this double heartbreak, he became emotionally vapid, and did the only thing available for the apathetic and soulless: he entered the tech industry. His entropy helped propel him to the top, and eventually he became the Director of Operations at a tech support center, where a new group of poor students were just beginning to emerge.

    Gustavo Sorola, fleeing from his stunning failures at Rice University, met Geoff Fink, a man who was simply too dumb for college. They embraced their low-paying tech jobs, falling in love with the primary colors and blinking text of the internet. A kinship was formed, and the pair became fast friends, often playing video games till all hours of the morning while sharing their feelings and desires. Pillow fights were had, toenails were painted, and much alcohol consumed. It was heaven on earth.

    The two quickly became disillusioned with the internet and learned to hate its mocking ways, so they created a website in defense. It was called Uglyinternet.com and it was mean. Too mean for the world. Lawsuits were filed, and death threats issued. The pair bought a baseball bat and hid in a closet for six months. When they emerged, they had a dream to start another website, one that combined god's two greatest gifts to mankind: drinking and video games.

    Drunkgamers.com began soon after in the spring of 2000. The site began to grow a small following, and much like the moth is drawn to the flame, Burnie was drawn to their radical ideas and raw passion. Slowly, Geoff and Gus taught Burnie how to care again. He began to write for them, and soon became the most prolific drunken video game writer of all time.

    Drunkgamers quickly grew, adding a cheese-loving, shoe-hating hippie named Dan Godwin, and a pseudo homeless kid named Jason Saldaña. Not a lot is known about how Jason actually became a part of the group, but one can assume it had a lot to do with pity. A few other staffers were added, but they all died in a car crash. It was sad.

    Trying to find a way to weasel his quasi-filmmaking experience into the site, Burnie started adding weekly gameplay videos. No one watched them, but he refused to stop. One day while making a video showing how great he thought he was at Halo, he remembered a recent conversation during a game of CTF. It might have gone something like this.

    Burnie: Hey, do you ever wonder why they call it a Warthog? I think it looks more like a Puma!
    Geoff: You're an idiot.
    Gus: Die.

    Burnie couldn't shake the thought-provoking conversation. It haunted him. Why WAS it called a Warthog? Not a single other person in the entire world cared (and still doesn't), but he had to know. So he decided to create his own answer, and Red vs. Blue was born. He frantically called Geoff and Gus to tell them about his new idea, a movie INSIDE of a video game. They mocked him (and continue to, to this day). The world wasn't ready for his idea. No one could grasp the concept. Undaunted, he "filmed" a trailer to show them. They still didn't care. Burnie was heartbroken. Soon after, in a completely unrelated incident, Drunkgamers.com ended. No one knows exactly why or what caused the site's demise, but some sources say a middle finger (possibly two), combined with six Irish Car Bombs, were partially to blame. This looked like the end.


    Until...


    One day, four months later, Computer Gaming World contacted Geoff to ask if they could use an old Drunkgamers video on one of their cover mount CDs. Geoff graciously accepted, and he and Burnie lamented about the pointlessness of having a video in a magazine of such stature, with no website to point to it. The group reunited in a flurry of activity. Plans were made, schemes were hatched, and just as they were settling on the idea of a Justin Timberlake fan site, Burnie remembered his little Halo movie. He knew there was only one way to convince Gus and Geoff (who were already scanning in their Timberlake pics), so he got them stinking drunk. They awoke the next day, hung over and strangely sore (but that's a story for another day), to see that Burnie had convinced them to sign their lives away for the promise of more banana daiquiris. They were beaten. He immediately called Matt and Joel to gloat, only to discover that they too were beaten. Broken down by the harsh and unforgiving Tinseltown machine. They begged him for a job, even if it was just washing cars. Burnie decided to be the bigger man, and fences were mended (literally, he made them build a fence in his back yard).


    They were on board.


    And the world was without the best Justin Timberlake site ever...

    • Red vs. Blue

      In the distant future, two groups of soldiers battle for control of the least desirable piece of real estate in the known universe: a box canyon in the middle of nowhere.

    • The Strangerhood

      Welcome to the Strangerhood, a place somewhere between the surreal and the suburbs. It's a place where anything can happen, but can eight strangers figure out why it is happening to them?

    • PANICS

      Bravo Team, a special military group formed to battle supernatural enemies, has been sent into a military facility at night to investigate the reports of paranormal activity from within.

    • 1-800-Magic

      Brought to you by the Shadowrun engine and writer Joel Heyman, it's all out war between two sides: the humans and the trolls.

    • Supreme Surrender

      Diplomatic relations are hard. Two alien robot civilizations face off in the ultimate non-aggressive diplomatic showdown.

    • Achievement Hunter

      Achievement walkthroughs, hints, tips and tricks for the Xbox 360. Helping you get those achievements, one game at a time.

    • Captain Dynamic

      A team of writers is hired to promote the worst superhero in the world, Captain Dynamic. Starring Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies. Based on the game "City of Heroes" from NCSoft.

    • Stroyent

      A Quake Wars commercial series featuring everyone's favorite disgusting goo.

    • Immersion

      Can you recreate elements of popular video games in real life? Let's find out.

    • AHWU

      Jack and Geoff bring you the latest achievement updates in the Achievement Hunter Weekly Update!

    • Fails of the Weak

      The funniest and wackiest fails every week.

    • Pajamachievements

      Girls playing video games...

    • Forced Enjoyment

      Jack has to suffer through some awful, awful games.

    • Achievement HORSE

    • Drunk Tank

      The Rooster Teeth gang talk about Gaming, the Internet, Movies, or whatever the hell else they want to talk about. It is just like the Howard Stern show... but with a bunch of nerds and no naked chicks.

    • Rage Quit

      Michael plays some frustrating games.

    • This is...

      Each week, Achievement Hunter takes a look at upcoming games and DLC, then give a breakdown of what they are all about, how long they will take to beat, and what the time investment is to attain all Achievements.

    • Game Fails

      Where games come to fail.

    • RT Animated Adventures

      The animated shenanigans of the Rooster Teeth staff. Audio taken from the Rooster Teeth Podcast.

    • Past Cast

      Great figures through time log in for historical video blogs.

    • RT Life

      Everything that goes on behind closed doors at Rooster Teeth Productions.

    • Let's Play

      A revolving cast of Rooster Teeth employees play video games extremely poorly.

    • AH Predicts

      Each week, Achievement Hunter breaks out the science, and uses Xbox 360 sports games to determine the

    • Things to Do In

      Playing video games the way they definitely weren't meant to be played.

    • A Look Back At

      Each week we take a look back at some older, but still awesome games. Why not dust them off with us?

    • Trials Files

      Each week we take a look at an awesome community generated map in Trials Evolution.

    • Nature Town

      What if animals talk to each other when humans aren't around? And what if they pull pranks, steal from each other, and run for political office?

    • RT Recap

      Check out all the stuff you may have missed in the last week on Rooster Teeth!

    • RTX

      RTX is an event brought to you by Rooster Teeth that brings together gamers and game companies to celebrate the things we all love!

    • Quick Bits

      Think of it as baby Let's Play!

    • Trials Pig

      Like HORSE, but with two less letters.

    • The Gauntlet

      Blip Studios and Rooster Teeth Productions present a video game tournament like you've never seen. Gamers and superfans compete for a $10,000 grand prize in an epic video game competition known as The Gauntlet.

    • RWBY

      The future-fantasy world of Remnant is filled with ravenous monsters, treacherous terrain, and more villains than you can shake a sniper-scythe at. Fortunately, Beacon Academy is training Huntsmen and Huntresses to battle the evils of the world, and Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang are ready for their first day of class.

    • A Simple Walk Into Mordor

      To celebrate the release of The Hobbit this month, Kerry Shawcross and Chris Demarais, two staff member of Rooster Teeth Productions (the producers of Red vs Blue, Immersion, and Achievement Hunter), will do in six days what took Frodo and Sam three movies to complete. They will walk the 120+ mile journey across New Zealand from the filming location of Hobbiton in Matamata to the filming location of Mount Doom, Mount Ngauruhoe. They will sleep on the ground, cross rivers, and of course, eat Lembas Bread. Documenting the entire journey on video, the two Rooster Teeth staff will prove that one does simply walk into Mordor.

    • The Slow Mo Guys

      Gav and Dan take on the world in Slow Motion! We shoot all of our videos in HD using high-speed cinema cameras and we highly recommend you watch them that way if you can!

    • Five Facts

      Every week the guys take a look at Five Facts about games from all over the universe of gaming.

    • Behind the Scenes

      Peel back the dirty curtain of Achievement Hunter and get a look at the team behind the scenes!

    • VS

      Each week two members of the Achievement Hunter team go head to head in a 1 vs 1 let's play. The winner gets the coveted "AH Wrestling Belt" and a week's worth of bragging rights.

    • Achievement HUNT

      The AH crew play against one another until one spells HUNT.

    • GO!

      The AH crew scramble to be the first one in achieving a goal in order to get a sticker and become the pizza party winner.

    • RT News

      Get the biggest news for video games and entertainment from the folks at Rooster Teeth

    • RT Sponsor Cut

      Sponsor Only Content.

    • Play Pals

      Play Pals -- got two pals, playing games and having fun. Having a good time because they're pals. Thanks for watching Play Pals!

    • Countdown

      The AH Crew bring you their top lists of video games

    • Imaginary Achievements

      The Achievement Hunter crew presents you with challenges in various games on all platforms, that really could have been achievements.

    • MegaCraft

      The Achievement Hunters take a look at some of the best Minecraft maps around. You know, since they can't build any that good themselves.

    • The Leaderboard

      The latests in esports news and information.

    • Social Disorder

      Chris and Aaron create elaborate social experiments and pranks in order to compete against each other for points. Whoever completes the objective for the experiment – or gets the most points for creativity, absurdity, style, etc. – wins that episode.

    • Happy Hour

      Gavin Free, Geoff Ramsey, and Griffon Ramsey embark on a drunken journey that spans the better part of a decade. Tune in every few weeks to watch them dare and drink their way across the world and time.

    • Minimations

      Highlights from some of your favorite Let's Plays, now 3D animated!

    • Ten Little Roosters

      A festive dinner party spirals into an evening of intrigue and murder for the hapless employees of Rooster Teeth. After one guest is mysteriously killed, the remaining nine must find a way to survive the night... and root out the killer among them. Agatha Christie would, like, love this.

    • X-Ray and Vav

      X-Ray and Vav want to be the greatest super heroes ever, but they're the last people you'd want to be saved by. Despite their lack of superhero prowess, the duo is ready to take on any thug, robber or villain who stands in the way of justice. And they'll do it in true X-Ray and Vav fashion; crotch touching and creating chaos to save the day (for the most part)!

    • On The Spot

      Rooster Teeth's official game show! A live half hour of fast-paced laughs as host Jon Risinger puts two RT teams on the spot for points and mayhem.

    • Lazer Team

      Four unlikely heroes have to save the planet. Whether we like it or not. Catch up on all the behind the scenes video and extra content for the Lazer Team movie! Join in on the conversation at: http://bit.ly/lazerteam

    • Achievement Unlocked

      The Achievement Hunter Crew helps you get those achievements, one game at a time.

    • Easter Eggs

      The Achievement Hunter Crew helps you find Easter Eggs in video games.

    • Sunday Driving

      The Achievement Hunter crew takes a leisurely Sunday Drive across the video game landscape.

    • RT Showcase

      RT showcase

    • RT Shorts

      It's here.

    • The Patch Game Club

      It's a club! For games! Every week we'll pick a game, we'll play that game, then we'll talk about playing that game.

    • How To

      Congratulations. You've discovered the "description" section for the 'How To' videos. This is the section were we presume some sort of description is suppose to take place. But, unfortunately we're not really that good at typing long drawn out descriptions of things. That's kind of why we make videos - so we don't have to type. We don't even really know where most symbols on a keyboard are. Really. You know those little dots things? You know, the dot things that go above letters when you're speaking Dutch? We have no idea how to make that happen. Not that we plan on speaking Dutch or anything. Just saying.

    • Dude Soup

      Jump in the Dude Soup -- all the gaming, nerd culture, and meat-packing industry commentary you can handle.

    • Gameplay

      Funhaus plays games. Games that are mostly stupid. Sometimes we play real games people actually like. We poke fun at glitches, voice acting, art, and mechanics, but we can also team up for competitive matches with other YouTubers.

    • Demo Disk

      After a fan sent us a binder of PC Gamer demo discs of games, we knew what we had to do: play them all, no matter how terrible. Demo Disk showcases 1990s to early 2000s-era games, with running commentary and jokes.

    • Open Haus

      Open Haus takes time every week to answer questions from the Funhaus fans. Ranging from gaming and YouTube questions to waaaaay off-topic queries, Open Haus combines the Q&A format with a highly edited, comedic format.

    • Your Comments

      You guys leave us tons of comments, on YouTube and Reddit and the RT website and Twitter. We answer them here. Or at least scream at you.

    • Fan Show

      DaVinci. Michaelangelo. Monet. Some dude on Reddit. These are the greatest artists of all time, and we highlight the very best fan art our community produces every week. Submit your art to our subreddit at reddit.com/r/funhaus.

    • Pilot Program

      Rooster Teeth tests out new show ideas.

    • Rooster Teeth Podcast

      On a more or less weekly basis the Rooster Teeth crew discuss gaming, films, and projects that they're currently working on.

    • The Patch

      With a combined 7,000 years of experience playing video games, the Rooster Teeth crew is here to drop some serious gaming knowledge.

      Banner art by @4tonixx

    • Screen Play

      A Rooster Teeth podcast focusing on all things Film and TV. Listen to our pop culture geeks chat about TV premieres and finales, blockbuster franchises, indie darlings, casting rumors and spotlight a film to discuss in their weekly "Movie Book Club" segment. So pop some popcorn, grab a good seat and enjoy the show.

    • FAQ Podcast [Funhaus Answers Questions]

      It's a mysterious, scary world out there. Let Funhaus show you the way by answering questions about video games.

    • Million Dollars, But...

      What would you do for a million dollars?

    • The Know It All

      The Know It All is a wrap-up of all the week's biggest stories in one shot, hosted by Ashley Jenkins and Meg Turney.

    • Game News

      The Rooster Teeth crew brings you the biggest news in video games.

      Banner art by @_mathew

    • Entertainment News

      Movie, TV, Comics.... if it's entertainment, we've got news for that!

      Banner art by @theseegirl

    • Tech and Science News

      The Know: Tech and Science News

      Banner art by @Twerdette

    • E3 2015

      The Know: E3 2015

    • Specials

      The Know: Specials

      Banner art by @DevIsaac

    • Free Play

      Meg Turney and Ryan Haywood bring you a fun dose of outrageous Internet videos, gaming news, and zany challenges. Plus, interviews and exclusive clips from Rooster Teeth's latest projects.