Ernest Cline based his book Ready Player One off of a futuristic Earth. Humans are still the dominant race and continue to find ways to escape the reality of life as we know it. The most prolific way of doing this is via the massively popular OASIS game, a real time virtual reality online game where people choose an avatar to represent themselves while they play. The creator of the this game, James Halliday, dies and leaves a fortune behind with a will. This will states that the entire 130 Billion he owns and the entire game will be under the control of whoever can find the easter egg in the game. He left a clue to get to the first key which in turn will open the first gate and unlock the clue to the second gate.
No-one is able to find the first key until Wade Watts (known in the OASIS as Parzival) unravels the clue and gets the first key. It becomes a race between him and his friends (called gunters) and a corporation known as IOI. This corporation is corrupt, has thousands of employees and if they with the game, will turn it into a huge profiteering racket where only those with money can access. Wade continues to follow his quest, falling for his best friend and being pursued in the OASIS and in real life by IOI. He overcomes challenges created by teen hormones, himself, and those put before him by James Halliday himself. He fights his way through, wins the challenge, inherits the money and makes an important realization that true happiness is found outside the game spending time with those who he is close to.
No-one is able to find the first key until Wade Watts (known in the OASIS as Parzival) unravels the clue and gets the first key. It becomes a race between him and his friends (called gunters) and a corporation known as IOI. This corporation is corrupt, has thousands of employees and if they with the game, will turn it into a huge profiteering racket where only those with money can access. Wade continues to follow his quest, falling for his best friend and being pursued in the OASIS and in real life by IOI. He overcomes challenges created by teen hormones, himself, and those put before him by James Halliday himself. He fights his way through, wins the challenge, inherits the money and makes an important realization that true happiness is found outside the game spending time with those who he is close to.