Ready Player One presents a contrasting scenario between real world urban environments and virtual urban environments. This setting is shaped by a culture of video games that promotes individual competition, gendered imaginaries, conflict narratives and a militarized mindset. Real world urban skyscrapers are depicted as loop-sided pyramids designed to house large numbers of immigrants in fast growing urban centers. These physical structures are crowd-funded, low-tech yet innovative and loosely regulated. Despite these attributes, these urban structures attract different arrays of individuals which populate the setting with vitality, ingenuity but also peasant habits and do-it-yourself building methods.
The whole narrative is based on video games culture as it pin-points contrasting differences between the imaginary of real world skyscrapers as living environments and virtual skyscrapers as competition environments, while also standing as a testament for reclaiming reality and preventing a dystopian future.
