Rooster Teeth, the Austin-based online content empire, has just announced that the studio is laying off 13% of its staff as part of a widely-expected restructuring. The company has said that the cuts are designed to respond to industry changes and reorient for future projects.

Founded in 2003, Rooster Teeth was a pioneer in online video, predating Youtube, and has become a major force in online content, with a huge catalog of animated and live action shows, a game division, and a slate of films, as well as a huge loyal fanbase. The original founders sold the company to Fullscreen in 2014. This began a series of takeovers and mergers that lead to RT becoming part of AT&T's WarnerMedia holdings. Throughout this, it has retained a great degree of autonomy – which lead to both its biggest growth period (adding titles like RWBY and gen:LOCK), but it also lead to a culture of crunch, and questions of production process and pipeline, leading to Animation Director Gray Haddock moving from his managerial position into a strictly creative role earlier this year.

That was widely seen as the first step in a restructuring process that hit hard today, with the first staff reduction in the company's 16 year history. In a letter to staff sent out this afternoon, cofounder and CEO Matt Hullum confirmed the cut, stating that "this decision is not reflective of anyone’s individual performance, and we’re thankful for all that our former colleagues have contributed. We will be doing everything we can to ease their transition, including helping them find their next opportunities."

The layoffs will clearly have a major impact on Austin's creative community, as Rooster Teeth is one of the biggest employers of artists and developers in the city.

Here's the full email from Hullum.