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[Lucaz]

So, the game designer, indie icon, vanguardists of the games as art and nu hippie, Jason Rohrer, took the obvious next step for such person, and now works in advertising.Link

What do you guys think about this?

[Aquin]

I think if he likes the job, he should do it.  I'm not sure why we, as total strangers, should care what he does for his day job.

[r.kachowski]

because jason rohrer who survives on less than $14500 a year from donations and speaking fees and lives an all round natural bio-organic lifestyle, now has a job using his talents to make me buy things i wouldn't normally have

Christ, can't you see this? This lush green atmosphere dying so gorgeously all around him? And Rohrer with a laptop, sitting cross-legged in the dirt, inventing a new way of showing the world what it means to be alive?

Read more: http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208-2#ixzz0IpLLHhRT&C

having said that, i would like to see how he'd pitch for one of their clients, i.e. gillette, volkswagen or heineken

[AaronAardvark]

I'm guessing Jason is a pretty solid guy.  He probably wouldn't take a job unless it appealed to his core values; so I'm guessing this one does.  When I read the message on Tool's site, it doesn't sound like a normal marketing position.

[pgil]

I don't see a problem. The only problem here is that esquire article made him look like some messianic granola superhero, when in reality he's probably just a normal guy who has to make a living like anyone else.

[Super Joe]

i don't know who that is, i could best him in combat though so who cares

[Don Andy]

Isn't he the guy who sued somebody because mowing the lawn is like a nature massacre?

Honest question, I'm just not sure if it's the same guy.

[r.kachowski]

On the first day of work on Regret, while Rohrer and his family are inside eating lentil soup, somebody comes tooling along Route 11B with a riding mower and cuts down a ten-foot strip of their front yard's natural meadow.

Rohrer calls the cops. "I'd like to report a serious act of vandalism," he says.

A lawn has a wound response. Most people don't know that. Cut a lawn and it emits harmful hydrocarbons, like a car. "Here we go," Rohrer says, flipping through his files. " 'Air Pollution and the Smell of Cut Grass.' I have a scientific study." In fact, he has a whole stack left over from his 2005 court case. That year, the Village of Potsdam arraigned Rohrer for an ordinance about lawn height. Rohrer pleaded not guilty. He recruited an expert witness to testify to the salutary environmental effects of natural meadows, and he wrote a nine-page brief enumerating how the village was violating his right to free expression. The prosecution asked him if he couldn't just grow the meadow in his backyard and not in the front. Rohrer said, no, that would defeat the whole point. He argued that "our ability to speak with our landscape would be drastically reduced if our desired landscape was restricted to our backyard, since very few people could see it."

i'ma stop quoting that

[Don Andy]

I guess at least he's somebody who fights for his believes. He has my blessings for all they may be worth. If he decides that living on a hippie budget is not actually enough anymore or that doing marketing is sort of fun then that's completely OK in my book.

I still don't like any of his games, but hey. Each his own cup of tea. Or something.

[AaronAardvark]

@Don Andy

If I had a full garden in the front of my house and somebody drove across ten feet of it with a mower, killing everything in that strip - I'd be pissed as hell.  Especially if I was dependent on that for food.

Now this is a pet peeve of mine.  He's not a hippie.  Sure, his ideals may portray him as hippie-like to you, but you're stereotyping and even dehumanizing by calling names - whether the connotation is good or bad to you.  I'm thinking it's bad.  I don't think I've ever heard the term 'hippie' used in a positive light.

[cactus]

I, for one, am a bit jealous. I hope he does something interesting with it.

[Oddbob]

i'ma stop quoting that

Oh lord no. Keep quoting it. It gets increasingly guffawtastic with every post.

@Don Andy

If I had a full garden in the front of my house and somebody drove across ten feet of it with a mower, killing everything in that strip - I'd be pissed as hell.  Especially if I was dependent on that for food.

You eat grass?

[Super Joe]

I guess at least he's somebody who fights for his believes. He has my blessings for all they may be worth. If he decides that living on a hippie budget is not actually enough anymore or that doing marketing is sort of fun then that's completely OK in my book.

I still don't like any of his games, but hey. Each his own cup of tea. Or something.

i believe he's a dumbass and i'll fit him for it

[Bennett]

i believe he's a dumbass and i'll fit him for it

You couldn't fit your way out of a wet paper bag.




Nah, you're alright. You could certainly beat me in a fit.

[Strong]

If it works for him, whatever. I don't judge like that.

I just hope he still does indie stuff on the side, too.

[moi]

I think he has already proved that he is very good at, you know, selling hot air.

[Tom Sennett]

He's working for a company called Tool.

'nuff said.

[Bree]

My guess is that he's going to be designing interactive ad campaigns for Tool- not a bad idea, given how well he can emotionally manipulate people already. It'll be interesting to see what he makes.

[Bennett]

I think we need to ditch this idea that advertising design is necessarily a creatively bankrupt pursuit. Many of the world's premier artists got their break doing creative advertising (like Ridley Scott, for example).

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i wish him the best and think advertising can be done beneficially and creativity & find all the bashing going on here unbecoming of this site