Hey, everyone.
So, as you can tell from the title, this is my third blog on the whole Rooster Teeth First fiasco. Some of you are probably thinking I'm obsessed, and you're right, I am. Why? Because none of it makes sense to me. Now, maybe I don't know the character of RT like I think I do, but it seems to me that this company cares more about its fanbase than most companies and content creators do. So, I'm forced to ask, why would they release new episodes of their biggest shows, i.e. RvB and RWBY, one week after Firsties get them? Yes, I know "early access to episodes" is on the Firstie perks, but by making it a whole week, the chance for spoilers is huge, and most Firsties don't care about the plight of Non-Firsties being spoiled, which creates animosity between the two groups of fans, and NFs then want to take a bite out of RT itself for creating the problem.
Now, here's where I get confused: what made RT think this was a good idea, or how could they not have seen this coming? It's especially stupid because there are other problems with this situation, i.e. NFs have no reason to visit the site now except to purchase merch, but moving merch and RTF accounts would be easier to do with traffic to the site, and there are plenty of reasonable solutions to the problem. Tell me: was anyone really that unhappy when Firsties got new content only 24 hours earlier than NFs? Maybe some were, but when you look at all the other perks Firsties get, they really don't have much of a reason to complain unless they only bought RTF for the early access which is stupid in and of itself because RT makes all their content free eventually, so why buy into RTF if the content will be free eventually? I would've thought most of the fanbase would've been smart enough to go, "Wait a minute. There's only a 24-hour difference between Firsties and NFs getting the content, and NFs get it for free. Why in the hell am I going to pay $2.99/mo just to see a show 24 hours earlier? That's stupid." And then RTF would've crashed and burned.
Obviously, this did not happen. So, either people are dumb, desperate and needy for their content, or they're genuine fans of RT and support most of or everything they do. Now, I will admit that I am constantly surprised by how loyal and generous some fans are. Take RTX for example; people actually buy plane tickets just to attend it. This of course doesn't include a hotel, meals, and either cab fare or car rental. In fact, I just went to Expedia and searched prices for a ticket, hotel, and car rental on a trip leaving Wednesday and returning Monday. Total cost: $2,371. Now, that's pretty expensive. But I did go back and changed some things. I made the trip a week later, dropped the car, changed the departure date to Friday and the returning date to Sunday. The most expensive option was $801 and the cheapest was $710. Adding in the price of RTX tickets are $39 for one day and all three days is $83, this is still a pretty expensive venture, and I didn't even include food. And it's all just to attend a convention. Now, of course, prices will vary depending on how far in advance you book your room and plane seat, how many people are going, and where you're flying in from, but it's definitely not cheap.
And this isn't the only time I've seen fans be genuinely insanely loyal and generous. The day RT came out with the RWBY board game on Kickstarter, they had 80K of their 305K goal and still had a month to go. Watching the Super Best Friend Zaibatsu, they used to have a mailbag series because fans were so desperate to send them stuff. Finally, they relented and in a single mailbag, they received two Blu-ray box sets of Gurren Lagann, MSRP of well over a $1000, in both US and Canadian. They actually stopped making mailbags because people were sending them too much sh*t and it was interfering with their regular record and upload schedule, not to mention all the sh*t they had to pick up from their post office because none of them own a house. Then there's Jessica Nigri; that girl turns out a fan mail video weekly, and again, people are insanely generous and affectionate. It's no wonder she walks around like her farts don't stink. She could break wind and people would be overjoyed to share in her body's natural miasma. Going back to RT, Geoff once got 11 bottles of liquor from fans from RTX. Who are these people who seem to have heaps and heaps and heaps of money and time to spend on their favorite content creators? Think of how these people could change the world if their efforts were properly mobilized. We could end world hunger with the money people are throwing around.
But getting back to RTF, how do we fix it so that there isn't this animosity between fans and the company? Well, if you read my last post where I suggested a few ideas to fix RTF (read it here), there was one that the more and more I think about it, the more I like it. I call the program the Rooster Teeth Early Bird Special, and what it would be is you pay $5.00 and you get early access to a single show for a single season. What if you want two shows? $8.00. What if you want three or more? Just another $2/show after that. Now true, there will come a time when buying RTF will be more cost effective than Early Bird, but for those who only want early access to one of two shows, this is the cheaper and better option. Now, where did I get the $5.00 price tag? It's an arbitrary number I pulled out of my ass because I don't know how RT came up with their prices for RTF. It's possible they can offer Early Bird at cheaper prices than that because a six month subscription of RTF is $19.99 and comes out to $3.33/mo and there's all sort of extra goodies in there, so Early Bird with only one perk, but lasting the course of several months should have an equally competitive price. But, RT would have to offer more payment options than just plastic so our younger and European brethren aren't discriminated against. So, Paypal, money orders, and checks would have to be added.
Now, some of my critics are probably thinking, "Do you know how much work all this would take?!" No, but can you tell me how much work went into turning RT Sponsors into RTF, or even how much work is necessary in maintaining RTF? It can't be all that much more arduous to create and maintain Early Bird, especially if it's made a branch of RTF. Add to that, there's not a single person in all of RT who can cash money orders and deposit checks in a bank? Over 200 people work for RT these days. If the founding fathers can't do it, there has to be someone they trust enough to run the money. And then there's the logo of creating Early Bird; a good chunk of that company is animators and artists. Are you telling me they can't get a logo designed on the cheap? If not, outsource it to a fan. Hold a contest. The winner gets a free coupon for Early Bird. And, the best thing about Early Bird is that if it crashes and fails, RT and Firsties can blame me for it. But, I have a feeling it would be hugely successful.
So, RT Early Bird Special is my response to this issue. It would just be easier to shorten the amount of time between Firstie and NF releases, or to stop touting the Firstie premiere date as the actual premiere date and just keep that information on the DL, but unless people start rioting en masse, I don't think that's going to happen. RT does have a large group of superbly loyal fans. I don't know why and I don't know where they come from, but they exist and they're an "obstacle" that needs to be addressed. With RTEBS, everyone's happy. Well, happier than we were.
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