Ready Player One

“If I was feeling depressed or frustrated about my lot in life, all I had to do was tap the Player One button, and my worries would instantly slip away as my mind focused itself on the relentless pixelated onslaught on the screen in front of me.” 

Wade describes how he escapes from his real-world concerns by using technology as an immersive distraction. While technology of this level mostly does not exist yet—augmented reality is not yet advanced or widespread—many people do distract themselves with social media and entertainment, showing how Cline’s description of a population seeking meaning through immersive environments is not fundamentally different from our own. 

“Maybe it isn’t a good idea to tell a newly arrived human being that he’s been born into a world of chaos, pain, and poverty just in time to watch everything fall to pieces.” 

As an 18-year-old and a self-professed nerd, Wade has a particular style of speech unique to his age and character. His dry description of life in 2045 at the beginning of the novel highlights his specific voice. Like many teenagers, he uses humor and deflection to minimize how difficult things are, but the truth is that he is sensitive and struggling to understand how to live a meaningful life in a world that feels broken. 

“They would start charging a monthly fee for access to the simulation. They would plaster advertisements on every visible surface. User anonymity and free speech would become things of the past. The moment IOI took it over, the OASIS would cease to be the open-source virtual utopia I’d grown up in. It would become a corporate-run dystopia, an overpriced theme park for wealthy elitists.”

The OASIS is an open-source program, meaning anyone can contribute not just as a player, but as a world-builder. People participate meaningfully in OASIS society in ways they never could in the real world. However, IOI wants to change the OASIS into another capitalist venture where only a select few can have access to everything and everyone else will be excluded, replicating the same structures that people are attempting to escape.

“At a time of drastic social and cultural upheaval, when most of the world’s population longed for an escape from reality, the OASIS provided it, in a form that was cheap, legal, safe, and not (medically proven to be) addictive.” 

Wade explains how the OASIS became so ubiquitous to society and where its attraction lies. The OASIS is more than a cultural phenomenon, it is a way of life. This has benefits and drawbacks, and though Wade says that the OASIS is not medically addictive, the novel demonstrates how this is merely a technicality. Functionally, it is difficult for people to quit.

“The Halliday Learning Foundation also provided impoverished children around the globe with free OASIS hardware and Internet access so that they could attend school inside the OASIS.” 

Halliday conceived of the OASIS as an ideal world in which services like education are free. Halliday’s efforts provide access to free school and demonstrate his commitment that everyone have access to the benefits of the OASIS. 

“‘If I win that dough, I’m going to make sure everyone on this planet has enough to eat. Once we tackle world hunger, then we can figure out how to fix the environment and solve the energy crisis.’” 

When Art3mis and Wade first discuss what they would do with Halliday’s fortune, Wade’s answer is selfish, but Art3mis wants to save the world. She believes strongly that Halliday’s wealth should be redistributed in order to make a better place to live for everyone. Her idealism has an effect on Wade, who proposes using the money to help save the world once he wins the contest.  

“‘The very soul of the OASIS is at stake here. The last thing Jim would have wanted is for his creation to fall into the hands of a fascist multinational conglomerate like IOI.’” 

Og rarely speaks to the media; as he feels that they are part of what is wrong with the world. However, once Wade finds the Copper Key, Og breaks his silence and gives an interview in which he advises the gunters to stay anonymous, as IOI will try to exploit them for information and a Sixer takeover of the OASIS would be the worst possible outcome.  

“‘It had become a self-imposed prison for humanity,’ he wrote. ‘A pleasant place for the world to hide from its problems while human civilization slowly collapses, primarily due to neglect.’” 

Ogden Morrow’s opinion of the OASIS differs radically from Halliday’s and that of most of the world. He views the OASIS as a Band-Aid on a wound rather than a solution to any of the world’s problems. For Morrow, the world’s problems are partly the result of people choosing to abandon it rather than engage with reality and attempt to change it for the better. 

“‘Either way, it will just mean there are a few hundred less human cockroaches out there collecting food vouchers and using up precious oxygen.’” 

Nolan Sorrento is a man motivated exclusively by profit, with no regard for human suffering or what might be in the common good. At first, Sorrento pretends to be nice to Wade, but he drops the act and reveals how little regard he has for human life. Sorrento insists that no one will care if people in the stacks die, and, for a time, he is correct.  

“I would abandon the real world altogether until I found the egg.” 

Wade’s obsession with the Hunt leads to complete self-isolation once he has moved away from the stacks and into his own apartment in Ohio, where he can interface with the OASIS undisturbed. He feels that the real world offers nothing of value for him, and now that he has the means to stay entirely within the OASIS, he abandons it completely. 

“In real life, I was nothing but an antisocial hermit. A recluse. A pale-skinned pop-culture-obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame.” 

This quote ties into the theme of escapism and wish fulfillment. Wade explicitly lays out everything that he perceives as wrong with himself and why he feels like his life outside the OASIS isn’t worth anything. By contrast, inside the OASIS, he is a hero, possessing fame, fortune, and status that he could never have in the real world.  

“Why try to figure out the problem on your own when you could have someone else do your thinking for you?” 

As technical support, Wade encounters dozens of people every day who would rather spend hours waiting on the phone rather than using that time to research how to fix their problems for themselves. This is another example of how escapism and a refusal to face one’s problems end up only contributing to those problems and making them worse. Wade suggests that avoiding critical thought and challenges is part of the reason humanity is in trouble.  

“I would sit up there and breathe the unfiltered city air for a while, feeling the wind on my skin. Then I would scale the barrier and hurl myself over the side.” 

Faced with the prospect that the Sixers might win the Hunt, Wade resorts to fantasizing about his own death. Wade thinks of the OASIS as his entire world at this point in the story, and the idea that the evil corporate empire might take it over and ruin it is too much for him to process. Rather than try to find a way to live in the real world—which he abhors—Wade engages in suicidal ideation.

“Now, it looked as it my foresight and diligence were about to pay off.” 

Wade often ends up stumbling upon answers by accident or conveniently having studied the exact right thing to help him with a certain task. In this example of that phenomenon, Wade has trained in Black Tiger, the game needed to complete the Second Gate.  

“Indents were never able to pay off their debt and earn their release. Once they got finished slapping you with pay deductions, late fees, and interest penalties, you wound up owing them more each month, instead of less.” 

IOI represents the absolute worst aspects of capitalism. Here, Wade explains how IOI entraps people who have run up debt, trapping those people in a system they can never escape. IOI sells the lie that if someone works hard enough, they will be able to pay off their debt; people do not realize the system is designed to keep them captive. 

“From the looks of it, IOI had been illegally eavesdropping on most of the world’s Internet traffic in an attempt to locate and identify the handful of gunters they considered to be a threat.” 

IOI represents the danger of powerful technology falling into the wrong hands. IOI has no respect for human life or privacy. When Wade discovers that IOI has been surveying the entire population, it underscores IOI’s amorality and the threat it poses both to the OASIS and people in the real world.

“In Marie’s opinion, the OASIS was the best thing that had ever happened to both women and people of color. From the very start, Marie had used a while male avatar to conduct all of her online business, because of the marked difference it made in how she was treated and the opportunities she was given.” 

Helen Harris—whose avatar Aech is a Caucasian male—learns how to get by in the OASIS from her mother, Marie. Anyone can be anything in the OASIS, so groups that are traditionally marginalized have avenues to success that wouldn’t have in the real world by being able to disguise their race or gender. Notably, this doesn’t solve the problem of prejudice or discrimination, it merely allows people to sidestep it by appearing as non-marginalized identities. 

“I understood her, trusted her, and loved her as a dear friend. None of that had changed, or could be changed by anything as inconsequential as her gender, or skin color, or sexual orientation.” 

Aech’s revelation that she is an African American woman ends up making little impression on Wade past his initial shock. Aech is Wade’s best friend because of the history and interests they share, not her identity in the real world. On the one hand, this supports the conception of the OASIS as a world of expansive possibility that allows people to form meaningful relationships across identity categories. On the other hand, Aech chose her avatar’s identity knowing that she was likely to be treated better by others because of it, meaning that bias and discrimination still exist in the world of the OASIS. 

“Their total lack of hesitation astounded me, because it was obvious many of them were rushing toward certain death.” 

When Wade sends his email to the entire OASIS, asking them for support against the Sixers, he expects that many show up just to watch the fight, not to participate. He is shocked and moved to see their self-sacrifice, which demonstrates their belief that freedom and individuality are worth fighting for, no matter the potential cost. 

“Sorrento had tried to kill me. And in the process, he’d murdered my aunt, along with several of my neighbors, including sweet old Mrs. Gilmore, who had never hurt a soul. He’d also had Daito killed, and even though I’d never met him, Daito had been my friend.” 

Given the chance to simply head for the Third Gate and avoid Sorrento, Wade chooses instead to face his enemy head on in retribution for all of the suffering he’s caused. Sorrento’s real-world crimes are more important to Wade than finishing the contest. Wade’s growth is demonstrated by the risks he takes to protect the people that he cares about.  

“‘Because it’s the only honorable thing to do… Because I never would have gotten this far on my own. Because all four of us deserve to see what’s inside that gate and find out how the game ends. And because I need your help.’” 

Wade grows from a self-interested, isolated person to someone man who understands the importance of banding together with others. He tells his friends that he will share the prize money with them if they will help him because he knows he cannot do it alone and appeals to each of their sensibilities in order to convince them to help him.

“‘I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.’” 

Throughout the novel, Wade emphasizes his connection to Halliday, but once Wade wins the contest and meets Halliday in the OASIS, the importance of distancing himself from the life Halliday actually lived is apparent. Halliday admits that the OASIS was his form of escape, and that he chose to run from his problems instead of facing them, robbing him of what his life could have been. He doesn’t want Wade or anyone else to make the same mistake. 

“‘She said she’d be outside waiting for you. Whenever you’re ready to meet her.’” 

For much of the novel, Art3mis has been extremely private, never reciprocating when Wade reveals personal information about himself. When Wade gives her the Sixers’ dossier on her, she is angry at having her privacy invaded. She insists that nothing inside the OASIS is real and that relationships formed there don’t matter. At the end of the novel, once Wade has one the contest and saved the OASIS, Art3mis is finally ready to meet him in person, allowing him to see her for her she truly is.