Playing with crucifixion

For nearly 2,000 years, Christians have marked the Easter season with dramatic re-enactments of Jesus’ suffering, culminating with his crucifixion on Good Friday.

Now, in a 21st century twist, players in a new online game who break the rules can undergo “virtual” crucifixions as punishment, subjecting them to the taunts and jeers of other players while they hang on the cross.

A 27-year-old electrical engineer from Burton, Mich. – whose online persona is a hot-tempered barbarian named Cynewulf – was the first player to be crucified in the game Roma Victor (www.roma-victor.com), which is set in Roman-occupied Britain, circa A.D. 180.

His crime? Preying on unsuspecting Romans and violating the spirit of the game.

Roma Victor went public last year, ahead of a formal launch scheduled for this summer. The timing of the crucifixion during Lent was purely coincidental, officials say.

The New York-based Catholic League says the online crucifixions cheapen Jesus’ death.

“I know this stuff is pretty commonplace with these video games – the violence, the sex – but this part, the use of crucifixion, is obnoxious and I would have to say it’s willfully obnoxious,” said Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League.

Kerry Fraser-Robinson, the CEO of RedBedlam, which developed the game in Brighton, England, said the company took pains not to offend Christians or exploit Jesus’ crucifixion.

“We’re certainly not insensitive to their wishes or views,” he said.

Roma Victor counts thousands of players around the world as members, all leading virtual lives as Romans, Gauls, Celts or any other second century character.

Cynewulf – whose real identity remains hidden – has been playing about five hours a day for 10 months. He likened killing other players to popping bubble wrap, which he said becomes “strangely addictive somehow.”

But when Cynewulf hid in waiting for other players returning from a sojourn to the afterlife, and then killed them with no warning, Fraser-Robinson decided that a crucifixion was warranted.

The seven-day crucifixions are a type of penalty box in which players are removed from play.

The experience was “surprisingly agonizing,” Cynewulf said: “Being jeered at by the Romans while immobilized is not much fun, particularly since they are all weaklings who deserve to die by my sword.”

Two more characters have since been crucified. Fraser-Robinson said it helps maintain order among players, just as it instilled fear among Roman subjects.

“They can see what he’s done and what that got him,” he said. “It’s very effective.”