Can you think of where you might have seen those words?
This book made me realise why Zuckerberg paid $ 2.3 billion for Oculus. Ready Player One was published in 2011 and Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014, makes me wonder if Zuckerberg actually read this book before taking that decision. Anyway I just finished reading this book that I came across in Casey Neistat’s Book Club, I decided to give it a shot as it was highly recommended by Casey, and turned out to be one of the best fiction books I have read in recent times.
Ready Player One is a New York Times bestseller sci-fi novel about a future (AD 2044) ruled by Virtual Reality (VR). Remember those old video games? those that started with the words “Ready Player 1” or “Ready Player 2” once you hit start, that’s where the name of the book comes from. This reveals two things about the plot of the book, 1. the story revolves around a billionaire video game developer 2. he is obssesed with the pop culture of 1980s. So if you are a geek or had the chance to enjoy the 1980s (or both) you will enjoy this book.
I am not a fan of sci-fi books nor do I think VR is going to be big, but that changed after reading this book. If you are like me you might find it hard to believe that people would spend hours sitting wearing a VR headset lost in a world that doesn’t exist. But that is exactly what people in this book do. People use this Virtual Reality as an escape from the real world gripping with energy crisis, global warming and widespread social and economic problems. This VR world is a MMORPG virtual society called OASIS, with its own currency, which in the book is described as being more stable than the US dollar. People actually work inside the game and get paid in OASIS currency that can be converted to real money, which is not really required because people do everything from inside the game, including paying bills, watching movies going to concerts. This VR game is accessed by players using visors and haptic gloves, that lets people interact and feel things in the virtual world.
Much of the possibilities described in the book sounds scary, but it shows the possibilites of full fledge VR technology. For eg in the book underpreviledge students attend school withing the OASIS where they are taught in fully interactive class rooms by virtual teachers sitting somewhere in the world.
I won’t be suprised if all of the tech described in the book becomes available, what I will be suprised at is if this happens in the next 5 years. Zuckerberg already demoed a VR chat room (they are calling it Facebook Spaces) which is pretty similar to the chat rooms described in the book. They are also working on a pair of gloves that will work with the VR headset. Again makes me wonder if Zuckerberg got some (if not all) of the inspiration from this book.
I would say just read this book to be Ready for the future because it’s coming.
Oh and if you don’t like books, Steven Spielberg is directing a movie based on this book and the trailer looks awesome.