Most everything as we know it has been replaced by OASIS, an acronym for Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation. “He was the videogame designer responsible for creating the OASIS, a massively multiplayer online game that had gradually evolved into the globally networked virtual reality that most of humanity now used on a daily basis,” we learn in the opening of Ready Player One.

The reclusive James Halliday, a video game designer par excellence, a nerdy rags to riches success story, has died.