Poll of the Day > Why did people hate Ready Player One?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I thought the movie was decent. The romance was bad, and if the puzzles were that easy someone would have won the contest years ago. But effects were nice, and it had some good one-liners.

In my opinion the book was just way better.
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Because Gundam lost to Kiryu.

I was not so upset about that.

Learn your pop culture, movie!
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CaptainObvius posted...

and if the puzzles were that easy someone would have won the contest years ago.

I watched a couple things about this, and one of the things that people seem to bring up is the driving backwards bit.

You have to remember, you're putting in literally your own irl money into this race. Let's take present day speed runners and people who try out various different ways of doing things in games. Yes, they do try out a crap ton of different ways, but when that way fails, they can just try again. If you fail in this game, you actually lose real life money. Each time. That car you're using, gone. All your equipment, gone. And who knows what people lose in real life besides just money. A lot of people seem to live in slums, if they lose everything, they can't just sell their house to get their money back. Their one possession irl is this game and everything they own is in the game.
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^It's also important to note a couple other things as well. For instance, the easter egg hunt doesn't begin until well into The Oasis' lifespan. Many of these things were undoubtedly in the game years prior to the hunt starting which means anything done prior to that point wouldn't trigger anything. People could have done the race backwards but did it well before the hunt. Same goes for all the other puzzles.

There's also just the sheer size of the game itself. FF9 had a sidequest go undiscovered for years and it's not even a sliver of a fraction of the size of The Oasis. In fact, FF9 is probably part of a Playstation One FF planet within The Oasis. That's a shit ton of data to comb through for something that got secretly added and later activated without any notification.

That said, the puzzles in the book were definitely handled better for sure.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

CaptainObvius posted...

and if the puzzles were that easy someone would have won the contest years ago.

I watched a couple things about this, and one of the things that people seem to bring up is the driving backwards bit.

You have to remember, you're putting in literally your own irl money into this race. Let's take present day speed runners and people who try out various different ways of doing things in games. Yes, they do try out a crap ton of different ways, but when that way fails, they can just try again. If you fail in this game, you actually lose real life money. Each time. That car you're using, gone. All your equipment, gone. And who knows what people lose in real life besides just money. A lot of people seem to live in slums, if they lose everything, they can't just sell their house to get their money back. Their one possession irl is this game and everything they own is in the game.

Meaning, people are going to be a lot less likely to just try random things to get ahead.

Maybe for the average player. But the IOI was a multi-billion dollar industry, with video game experts and halliday scholars on the payroll. They could afford to do things every which way. What I really don't like, is how everyone knew that specific race was the first puzzle and didn't try anything innovative to solve it. Also, If someone as poor as Parzival could afford to constantly play it, other dedicated hunters would definitely be able to afford it. Especially a pro hunter like aech.
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I never saw the movie, but I really enjoyed the book. Only part that irked me was when the main character gets to the kill screen in Pac Man just a few hours after playing the game for the first time
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I enjoyed the movie, and I got the book on the cheap afterwards as a result. Like PO, I am the target demographic (born in 1980), and, though not all of the references hit the bullseye, enough of them did that I had a great time at the theater.

+1 to the movie for including the Glaive from Krull.

-1 to me for being enough of a giant robot nut to wonder why the guy picked Gundam and not a heavier hitter like, say, Mazinger Z or Voltron.
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SunWuKung420 posted...

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

creativerealms posted...

The book is horrible. The movie is actually better.

Fucking millennials!

My thoughts exactly. Thought the book was better.
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CaptainObvius posted...

Maybe for the average player. But the IOI was a multi-billion dollar industry, with video game experts and halliday scholars on the payroll. They could afford to do things every which way. What I really don't like, is how everyone knew that specific race was the first puzzle and didn't try anything innovative to solve it. Also, If someone as poor as Parzival could afford to constantly play it, other dedicated hunters would definitely be able to afford it. Especially a pro hunter like aech.

The people the IOI had actually participating in the events weren't multi-billion dollar income people though and they also weren't the scholars. They literally showed you that they entrap people with debt and use them to make them money. Those are the people they are putting in the events.

Also, I don't think you had to pay anything to participate in the race, but if you did anything that got you killed while racing you would have 0 money in game and irl.
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I_Abibde posted...

-1 to me for being enough of a giant robot nut to wonder why the guy picked Gundam and not a heavier hitter like, say, Mazinger Z or Voltron.

For Voltron, it's probably because they'd need the individual Lions which would have been great in the movie as there were five in the main group, but they'd also have to bring up why they were never mentioned or shown before that point. They didn't have that problem with one of the late additions having a trump card because of being a late addition.

As for Mazinger versus Gundam that's matter of recognizably to the western audience really. Licensing may have also played a role too since Gundam is probably easier to license than other mechs from that time period.

The book actually has a few more mechs than the movie, but honestly you may dislike that sequence in the book more. Not gonna spoil why though.
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I think the movie was pretty ok.
I dunno if I'll watch it again though.

I think I'll buy that Rampage movie when it hits the stores. That movie was hilarious.
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While on the topic of things that don't make sense in the movie, why was everyone making a big deal about IOI getting the third key? The keys are useless (but not worthless) unless you have all three.

demonfang178 posted...

While on the topic of things that don't make sense in the movie, why was everyone making a big deal about IOI getting the third key? The keys are useless (but not worthless) unless you have all three.

Because then they would have had all three. The keys aren't one-of-a-kind items. Only one per player but every player could have a copy of all three keys.

As for why there were multiple copies instead of making them one-of-a-kind, in the book there was a scoreboard that tracked the progress of the players. Basically, a leaderboard because the guy who made it was the biggest gaming nerd in history. Yeah, no real point behind that other than plot device so that the baddies can figure out which players to go after.
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

CaptainObvius posted...

Maybe for the average player. But the IOI was a multi-billion dollar industry, with video game experts and halliday scholars on the payroll. They could afford to do things every which way. What I really don't like, is how everyone knew that specific race was the first puzzle and didn't try anything innovative to solve it. Also, If someone as poor as Parzival could afford to constantly play it, other dedicated hunters would definitely be able to afford it. Especially a pro hunter like aech.

The people the IOI had actually participating in the events weren't multi-billion dollar income people though and they also weren't the scholars. They literally showed you that they entrap people with debt and use them to make them money. Those are the people they are putting in the events.

Also, I don't think you had to pay anything to participate in the race, but if you did anything that got you killed while racing you would have 0 money in game and irl.

But if you always lost everything, then why would people constantly play the race and lose everything for sure? Clearly you can go into the race and not have to die, so why would you assume trying different things would automatically result in your death?

Evidently Aech, whats her face, and Parzival had been doing the race repeatedly without losing their life/gear. Going backwards wouldn't have seemed like a reason to automatically die. And IOI should have tried it at some point in the years that they had multiple people going into the race. I mean, it's like the first thing anyone ever does in a race when they know they won't win.
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Don't know about "hate" but Ready Player One's plot didn't make sense and parts felt like they were written by someone who didn't actually play video games or understand how video games work.
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Smarkil posted...

But if you always lost everything, then why would people constantly play the race and lose everything for sure? Clearly you can go into the race and not have to die, so why would you assume trying different things would automatically result in your death?

I didn't, I just said if you did anything that got you killed while racing you would have 0 money in game and irl.

And yes, they show that you can go into the race and not die. All three of the main characters do that.

Smarkil posted...

Going backwards wouldn't have seemed like a reason to automatically die. And IOI should have tried it at some point in the years that they had multiple people going into the race. I mean, it's like the first thing anyone ever does in a race when they know they won't win.

Like I pointed out before, the people they send into the events are actually trying their hardest because they aren't the ones that are going to be getting the rewards. They have a debt to IOI and when they say, "go to this event and race." They are just going to go into the event and race. They're not thinking "hmmm, what can I do to go above and beyond for this corporation that I owe money to."

And I don't agree that going backwards at the beginning of the race is the first thing anyone does when they know they won't win cause no one knows they won't win when they are at the starting line.

Let's say the starting line is point A and the finish is point D. That means this race is a straight line, there's no laps, so there's no closed circuit. Most people in that situation aren't going to go backwards at the start of the race because everything in the race is going in the opposite direction.

Also, this is an MMO that the majority of Earth's population plays. That means most of the people in this game are actually not going to be gamers and aren't going to think of things like gamers.
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Shinebolt posted...

Licensing may have also played a role too since Gundam is probably easier to license than other mechs from that time period.

Well, yeah, I know the real-life reasons why, but I'm talking in dork terms here.
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I thought it was a GREAT movie. The whole "Shining" scene took me by surprise. I didn't think they'd do something like that. Very cool.

All the video game references and general "culture" of the internet being played out on the big screen was super fun to watch.

I think the only thing I didn't like about it was the over abundance of the color gray. Just gun metal gray everywhere. Bluish grays. Gray. Grey. Metal. Blue hues. Gray. Ughlkk.....Jesus. Can we get some color in here, please!!!!
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AllstarSniper32 posted...

Smarkil posted...

But if you always lost everything, then why would people constantly play the race and lose everything for sure? Clearly you can go into the race and not have to die, so why would you assume trying different things would automatically result in your death?

I didn't, I just said if you did anything that got you killed while racing you would have 0 money in game and irl.

And yes, they show that you can go into the race and not die. All three of the main characters do that.

Smarkil posted...

Going backwards wouldn't have seemed like a reason to automatically die. And IOI should have tried it at some point in the years that they had multiple people going into the race. I mean, it's like the first thing anyone ever does in a race when they know they won't win.

Like I pointed out before, the people they send into the events are actually trying their hardest because they aren't the ones that are going to be getting the rewards. They have a debt to IOI and when they say, "go to this event and race." They are just going to go into the event and race. They're not thinking "hmmm, what can I do to go above and beyond for this corporation that I owe money to."

And I don't agree that going backwards at the beginning of the race is the first thing anyone does when they know they won't win cause no one knows they won't win when they are at the starting line.

Let's say the starting line is point A and the finish is point D. That means this race is a straight line, there's no laps, so there's no closed circuit. Most people in that situation aren't going to go backwards at the start of the race because everything in the race is going in the opposite direction.

Also, this is an MMO that the majority of Earth's population plays. That means most of the people in this game are actually not going to be gamers and aren't going to think of things like gamers.

Not all of the people working were indentured. Remember the majority of the people were regular employees. The scene where all of the soldiers were changing rigs as soon as they died, none of them were in the cubes for indentured people. IOI wouldn't keep all of their money in their workers avatars. They issue new money and equipment for every character as they respawn. I would guess the soldier avatars don't even keep money on them to avoid losses.

If everyone knew that the race was the way to the first key, slots would fill up for every race very quickly. Meaning only the really serious gamers would be playing.
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I_Abibde posted...

Well, yeah, I know the real-life reasons why, but I'm talking in dork terms here.

That's kind of all that matters in the context of the movie unless you want them to skip the fight scene which would've been lame as hell. In terms of the book, well as said before not gonna spoil anything.
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