Gamification ideas have been applied in daily life, marketing strategies, and stories for many decades. The novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline is about a journey through the life of James Halliday and his unique creation; the virtual reality game referred to as the OASIS. The story is set somewhere in the future on a destitute planet that suffers a current energy crisis, widespread poverty, famine, diseases, and climate change coupled with overcrowding (Cline 1). James Halliday opted to develop the OASIS at a time when people were living in overcrowded conditions. He employed a lot of references to the 1980s pop culture as that is the time he enjoyed most. The main underlying theme of the book is human dependence on a simulated world-The OASIS, which is accessed via virtual reality equipment. The essay dissects Wade’s purpose for disconnecting from reality, which comprises why he is persistently trying to escape. In addition, it examines what he receives from plugging into the OASIS and is the reason other characters in the novel participate in the fantasy world.
People are experiencing issues in the world despite having high technology with glowing neon universally. Wade Watts, orphaned 18-year old lives in “a trailer park on the outskirts of Oklahoma City” (Cline 9). His Aunt, Alice, adopts Wade and the world they live in is experiencing widespread poverty, overpopulation, climate change, and a global energy crisis (Cline 1). Further, Halliday becomes one of the wealthiest people globally because of the unprecedented success of the OASIS. He died leaving behind no relatives or friends. It is noted that “He’d spent the last fifteen years of his in self-imposed isolation…he’d gone completely insane” (Cline 2). Hence, people are struggling with OASIS to win the money he had placed for anyone who would discover the Easter egg in the video game.
Gamification introduces rewards and game play into daily activities to enhance engagement and establish consumer loyalty. Halliday accomplished this as one of the major aspects of the OASIS game. Everyone on the face of the planet looks forward to logging into the game and immersing themselves in the virtual world (Cline 9). After logging into the virtual reality game one does not want to go back to the real world. He says, “She used to have forced me to log out… because I never wanted to return to the real world… real world sucked” (Cline 18). This shows that the real world to most people seems to be hell because of the problems they are experiencing in life.
Most people logged into the OASIS virtual world to flee from the hopelessness in the real world. The story focuses on Wade Watts, a high school gamer who is yet to realize his place in the universe. OASIS started as a mere game but has emerged to become a pacifier and addictive that society is affected by. Wade’s parents passed when he was still young and left him under the care of his aunt (Cline 12). Wade is pursuing a mysterious Easter egg that was hidden in the OASIS by the designer James Halliday who died many years ago.. The end of this game is to get the ultimate prize where a player in the OASIS should get three keys (Copper, Crystal, and Jade) and each key opens the puts then a move closer to unlocking the legacy of James Halliday (Cline 10). His major aim of Wade is to win by getting three keys to open three gates, which he ultimately succeeded in winning a prize.
The OASIS has emerged to be part of ordinary life in which it presents players with a shift from the real unhappiness that they experience in the actual world and that is what each person needs. The influence of escapism from reality is irresistible, crucial, and even strange because of the daily activities in the future world. Hence, the OASIS for individuals is the current day reality, providing a departure from the traditional unhappiness, the future is miserable. Notwithstanding the times being difficult, it appears from the perspective of matters that they are going to experience the worst with the human civilization corrosion. James Halliday in the novel realized that there is more life in the real world compared to concentrating entirely on the virtual life the video game offers (Cline 11). He acknowledged that as terrifying and painful as reality may be, it can be the only place a person can find happiness.
Furthermore, in the Allegory of the Cave, Plato employed a metaphor to portray human thoughts and discover the truth through logical reasoning. Each player in the story played a guessing game of shadows that might appeal to an abnormality in the octalysis structure. The OASIS is the last game of Halliday before he died, having no children or wide, no friends, and relatives; thus, based on the circumstances that the world presently experiences. In the novel, there is growing global destruction, annihilation, increased cases of unemployment, and destitution. The major aim of James Halliday was to give people an opportunity to escape their distress and find some peace even if it is not real (Cline 28). The OASIS game accomplishes the goal of making people happy and forgetting their tribulations in difficult times.
Moreover, Halliday applies a sophisticated system to make the OASIS virtual world. It is you versus the machine, one has to move with his/her right hand and apply his/her left hand to shoot while staying alive. Video games create a critical network among players, keeping them drawn on for an extended period and nurturing different innovative potentials. Halliday illustrates that in his game by developing a utopia for individuals that want to escape from the issues by being immersed in the virtual world of pleasure that they can manage. If something is engaging as it gives people opportunities to articulate their innovativeness, then they are possibly to feel pleasure doing it. For instance, Wade says, “I’d heard that… accessed the simulation with a new state-of-the-art immersion rig…it impossible to tell the OASIS from reality” (Cline 27). It implies that even the wealthy people in this universe want to flee it.
Nonetheless, with time people discovered that The OASIS was not the real world, it was an avenue for a brief get away from their distresses and be in an atmosphere that was devoid of inquiry and where everyone had an equal chance regardless of their positions or situations in real life. In addition, the virtual world is used for playing games and creating social networks, and shopping. It is possible other than escaping reality by concentrating on a TV Show, for instance, people can decide to replace the unhappy reality with a good one, a virtual one (Kim1). The OASIS is characterized as their escape and safer place to live other than having to deal with the pain of their reality.
Conclusion
From the analysis, having assessed the reasons and events, one can easily sum up that the reason many characters are plugged into the OASIS is they find nothing much in the reality. In the OASIS, they find chance, hope, self-esteem, confidence, and opportunity to continue with their lives. In addition, the OASIS appears and feels real; thus, making many characters disregard the fine line in between. Further, the state of technology in 2045, takes gaming and virtual reality to another level.
Works Cited
Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One. 3rd ed., Arrow, 2018.
Kim, Monica. “The Good and the Bad of Escaping to Virtual Reality.” Web.