This story was originally published on Passionfruit.
From July 1-3, digital media company Rooster Teeth’s “RTX” convention, the 10th of its kind, kicked off in downtown Austin to connect creators and fans of its gaming, podcasting, and animation series.
In a wonderfully nerdy environment, niche communities geeked out over new partnership announcements, game demos, merch drops, episode releases, and one-on-one celebrity encounters with their favorite creators. On the flip side, creators got to put faces to names, feed off audience energy, and connect with co-collaborators IRL.
Backstage at RTX, we spoke with two OG Rooster Teeth creators: co-founder and producer Gustavo Sorola, who has been with the company since its inception almost 20 years ago and Chris Demarais, who has been a head writer and content producer at Rooster Teeth for over 11 years.
The duo shared their thoughts on evolution and growth of the Rooster Teeth wheelhouse, what creators get out of RTX, the benefits for creators joining a media company like Rooster Teeth, Sorola and Demarais’ podcast Black Box Down, monetization woes, premium subscription products, and more.
Rooster Teeth is a digital media company known for podcasting, gaming, streaming, and animation. It was originally founded by a group of four friends in a spare bedroom in Austin, Texas, in 2003. Today, 19 years later, Rooster Teeth has grown to a titanic scale. It’s now a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Entertainment, bringing in millions of eyes and ears to a multitude of cult-favorite shows.
Some of Rooster Teeth’s most notorious series include its gaming division Achievement Hunter, the long-running fictional Halo “machinima” universe Red vs. Blue, and the anime-style fantastical story series RWBY. Rooster Teeth’s podcasting network, The Roost, hosts shows from well-known creators—like Grace Helbig, Mamrie Hart, Anthony Padilla, and Phillip DeFranco—and builds out original shows from its own roster of talent, including Barbara Dunkelman, Ify Nwadiwe, Kelsey Impicciche, and Fiona Nova.
