Questionable Questing

They also have an amazing game show called On The Spot which I would call a modern younger take on Whose Line is it Anyways.

Their RT shorts series are pretty great though admittedly I like their older shorts over the newer ones.

The RT life series is mostly just them being dumb and funny but its also pretty awesome and gives a good view of them as normal people.

So I'm confused about something about RT. They've been bought out by Fullscreen, but at the same time they are considered a fanfiction/fangroup/fan-thingy... not really a company. It's hard to reconcile because those are opposites... what are they really like? Do you think they have potential to grow?

I think they were the equivalent of fanfiction as a business for several years. In some ways they still are. But I believe they're growing into a "real" business. I'm actually a bit concerned about it. I don't want to say they're selling out or anything..

But they are getting a bit too big to be as close to their fans as they once were.

"Fanfiction As A Business", that's an awesome phrase. That's like "Infrastructure As A Service", like in cloud computing. Heh. Neet.

Anyway, as I understand it, 2015 is a bit of a turning point for them in that they started acquiring other "FAAB" groups, kinda. You think they are in a transition, right? So maybe that's where my confusion comes from!

For example they own the Lets Play channel on youtube and it used to be Achievement Hunter's youtube channel. Then Funhaus joined RT and Achievement Hunter got a new channel and both Funhaus and AH uploaded videos to Lets Play.

Now suddenly Screw Attack and Kinda Funny and the Creatures are all joining the "Lets Play Family" and its getting a bit too big for me to keep track of it all.

And I was a fan of Achievement Hunter and I also like some of the stuff that Funhaus does but now with things changing I find myself watching less of the content from them that shows up in my subscriber feed.

Do you think making their own series, like RWBY, is detrimental to their "closeness to their fans"? Because that seems like the main reason people like them, right?

So in conclusion RT is evolving into a very real business. They are in essence legit.

Part of me worries that they're losing their heart and soul at the same time though. At the very least I can't keep up with all of the new employees. Heck neither can they by their own admission these days.

As for RWBY I don't think it has directly contributed to that, no. It has contributed in the sense that its success as a show has made RT grow bigger in personnel to accomodate it.

Direct reasons for RT's possible disconnect from fans in my mind comes from their success over the last 10 years and by extension because of that, their acquisition by Fullscreen.

Well, 10 years of success can make even the humblest person prideful, and 10 years of work can make anyone tired enough to wish to cash out. But at this point, who are the key people in RT anymore? It's so hard to tell because they have so many things going on.

I mean, the key people are still the people who started the company. The original "founding fathers" are actually still very present and prevalent in RT and RT's productions.

Here's what the Founding Fathers of RT are up to right now:

Matt Hullum is the CEO.

Burnie Burns is the CCO.

Gus Sorola doesn't have a fancy title, but he is the Host of the RT Podcast, and he organizes RTX.

Geoff Ramsey created Achievement Hunter, but recently he's handed it over to someone else to focus on creating the "Lets Play Family"

Joel Heyman is still in a bunch of their stuff. He's not in a leadership role in the company, but he's always been an actor in their productions.

So what do you think about RTX? Conventions have become a thing that I am pretty interested in as of late.

I'm not a con goer. I like watching their convention podcasts though, they always do one on stage and the audience participation can be nice.

I'm way too introverted to ever go to any sort of convention though, just not my thing.

Also, it seems very difficult to do anything with RT on my end, because they seem to be large enough to hand it off to new people, yet still try to be, like you said, close to their fans. It's a strange feeling because when I try to communicate with the company, they are difficult to talk to, but the image is that they are very accessible, you know?

Yeah, its what comes from having millions of fans. Like, as a fanfiction writer I have at max, a few hundred fans. Maybe a few dozen of those fans even want to interact with me, so I put forth the effort to do so.

That's just it. Their BizDev SVP still hasn't replied after I had my people give him a schedule of when we could talk like a week ago. It's like these people don't make calls or work outside of office hours, how are they supposed to work in partnerships with people from the other side of the world?

Now you've completely lost me lol.

I wanted to develop a RWBY game as I am in charge of games at one of the largest internet companies in China and as a fan, but RT's Business Development Senior Vice President is being... lazy.