Today in stepping in it:

Well, he's stepped in in now, hasn't he? He who? Stig Asmussen. In an interview he-huh? What has he stepped in? Another internet controversy. And in anticipation I'll answer your next question with: by poorly explaining a dumb decision.

At this point, the internet is something
like 40% video-game related controversies. 

"It's a video game that exists."

Raves IGN

So what the hell am I talking about and why should you care? To the second part, you probably shouldn't. The easiest response is to just skip this game both to register your outrage and because everyone who saw it at E3 said it was kind of 'm'eh. Anyway, so Stig Asmussen is the Entertainment Director for video game developer Respawn Entertainment, the company working on the be-coloned Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.

It's a game that shares elements of
Metroid and-wait, you don't care...

It's a news action adventure or 'Metroidvania' game set in Disney's Star Wars brand content universe. In it, players will take on the role of Jedi Knight Cal Kestris and in typical Star Wars brand video gaming, run around with a lightsaber. That's really all any of us know. Or was, until now. Speaking to gaming site Game Informer a few days ago, Asmussen took questions from fans-which is never good, but this time the shit show that ensued wasn't because of a fan question but rather a developer answer.

Amongst a bunch of nerd questions about Dark Jedis and Force Powers and how bright the lightsaber would be (no really), Asmussen was asked if he ever considered using a non-human character:

Pictured: Rey, seen here getting people
who make Star Wars off the hook for
including female characters forever.

"Yes, we talked about doing an alien creature. We talked about different genders. We arrived at where we were because at the time Rey was kind of the thing for Star Wars, and so it made a lot of sense for us to have a male protagonist. And ultimately we didn't go with an alien race because we felt like-no pun intended-that would alienate a lot of people." 

-Stig Asmussen, Entertainment Director

for Respawn Entertainment, stepping in it

Take for example almost every
sports game ever-although that also
seems like a problem with sports...

Yup, in a bold move for a video game, Cal Kestris is a generic white guy. Did I say bold move? I meant in a move seen in 99% of all video games. Do I have hard data to back that up? Of course I don't. But I have played a lot of video games. Like a lot. In fact, I probably have a problem, but where I'm going with this is that the vast majority of them feature male protagonists. Apart from the odd Samus or Shante or...(shudder) Laura Croft, female characters are an exception. Recently character customization has been the norm with an option to make the player character whomever you want, but that's not happening here.

"Finally, a video game where you
can play as a male character."

-No one, c'ept jerks

Ok, so it feels a little out of step to lock players into one character, but ok, fine. It's a game with a narrative and for whatever reason they want a single specific character. Cool. And that character happens to be a kind of dull-looking white guy...again. Whatever. What sucks is Asmussen's explanation that because the current Star Wars movies feature a female lead, 'it made a lot of of sense' to have a male protagonist. Does it though? Like, can you not have two things with a female lead?

I mean, the first two trilogies, six movies in total, were centered around male characters. Same same with the tie-in stuff. The books, the previous video games, the comics. Until very recently it's been something of a space sausage fest.

You see, I put the word "space" in front of the word
"sausage." It's called comedy. (note: no it's not)

"That's us! We never leave a
dime on the table. Ho-ho!"

-A Disney spokesrat

I say recently because there's been a noticeable effort to create new female characters in Star Wars and to highlight pre-existing ones. Rey, Jyn Erso, Rose, and even Hera and Ashoka from the animated series. It really seems like Star Wars as a thing is kind of rocking it. Ok, hang on. I need to walk that back, because the last thing I want to do is praise a soulless media conglomerate that owns everything. As a company that exists for the sole purpose of enriching its shareholders, Disney's/Star Wars' eager embrace of gender diversity isn't about social consciousness or making the world a better place. Disney saw a market for representation and has just been exploiting it. But my nieces get Star Wars movies with female protagonists so, win/win?

Aunt Beru, seen here as a smouldering
corpse, represented 25% of the original
trilogy's named female characters.

Anyway the ridiculousness of this controversy-yes it is, the internet says so-isn't that Jedi: Fallen Order features a male character. Like I said, lots of games do. It's that Asmussen seems to be suggesting that it should feature a male player character because Star Wars is like, full of chicks. In fact, there's no need to create female characters in the future, you know, because Rey. It's a logic that seems to forget that until Episode I, there were like four female characters in all of Star Wars.

What makes this whole situation even dumber was that the question was 'hey, why not an alien?' Not 'could you weigh in on gender diversity in video games?' So in many ways, Asmussen didn't even need to stick his foot in his mouth in so spectacular a fashion. Respawn could have just slinked along and released their game without anyone noticing how not interesting the lead character was.

Although, is it weird that when asked about aliens
Asmussen's mind went immediately to women?