Ready Player One discussion

I read the following and immediately thought of the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I'm not 100% certain it's supposed to be a reference, because the name is slightly different, but anyway:

"I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to be until I saw MIDDLETOWN LANES printed in huge letters on the wall above the bowling lanes."

In the Dark Tower books there are a few references to Midtown Lanes bowling alley, which I believe later changes into Mid-world Lanes as the world moves on.

Andrew wrote: "Kind of a stretch."

A bit, yeah, but this book is filled with references from start to finish, and it's not much of a jump from mid to middle. They're both bowling alleys. The name of the alley in Ready Player One has no meaning or other mention, so I think it's plausible.

I agree that it's a bit of a stretch. All of the references in the book are to video games, movies, and tv shows with a few comics thrown into the mix. I'm pretty certain novels didn't make it in at all, except maybe as an abstract. I think at one point Wade mentions that he's read everything by Halliday's (Holiday's? I actually listened to the audio version, so not sure on spelling) favorite authors, but doesn't actually mention the book titles by those authors. Even when Rivendell was mentioned, it was done so in reference to the LOTR movies, not the books.

That said... it WOULD be cool if SK had gotten some props in the book.

I know many people got hung up looking up all the references. I loved this book even though I remember the late 80s. I can definately see where Cline would sneek in references to all forms of entertainment that he loves.

Andrew wrote: "Kind of a stretch."
No, it's not a stretch. It's obviously a Darktower reference. Midtown, Middletown. The odds of two authors naming a bowling alley so closely, by chance, are astronomical.

If the 'Dark Tower' series was written in the 80s, it really isn't a stretch at all.

The first book was written in the 70s, I believe. The others were written later. Later than the 80s though, I think.

It's a coincident. In RPO, Halliday was born in Middletown, witch is half way between Cincinnati & Dayton in Ohio.

The house of Ogden was built to resemble tolkien's elven architecture, and stephen loves tolkien books and D&D etc... I'm not saying it is a reference but since I finished the dark tower 7 books and just after finishing them I came to ready player one, I did think inmediately that it was a reference to it... it really is possible I belive
EDIT: Christine appears in the movie trailer... that's not correlated to the book, I know but it really is a gallore of pop references from everywhere not just videogames and comics, it has music, movies, cars, clothes, damn I'm loving this book

@David, LOTR was not out in the 80's. Unless you are referring to the animated version which is a guilty pleasure of mine and 80's Kitsch all the way.

I had this exact same thought reading it, but I honestly doubt it was intentional.

I like to the think the best Easter Egg of them all and the one most deserving of attention could be a possible reference to the 3 keys & riddle solving concept of the 1981 Milton Bradley (MB) fantasy game, DARK TOWER.

Dark Tower was advertised as the world’s first “electronic board game”. My older brother and I collected pop cans to buy our game from Toys ‘R Us for $50.00. We spent many hours in the basement, set up on a card table immersed in the quest for the bronze, silver and gold keys. We travelled through four Kingdoms, unable to cross the Frontier without the next Key. We amassed Warriors, fought battles, Retreated from battles, haggled in the Bizarre, bought Healers to ward off Plagues, Scouts to keep us from getting Lost, Beasts to carry our Gold, Food for our Warriors, slayed Dragons if we were lucky enough to find a Sword, and even Cursed each other. All action executed from the “pièce de résistance”, the electronic Tower that was fitted to sit in the middle of the board. We kept track of our Warriors, Gold, Keys and other items by putting little red pegs into a simple peg board or we could burn a Move checking our Inventory.

Keys were usually earned from winning a battle in a “Tomb” or “Ruin”, but could be awarded from winning any battle on the board. When we had all the keys, we returned to our home Kingdom to buy more Warriors and visit our Sanctuary. The Sanctuary in any Kingdom was like a pit stop to get more Gold, Warriors, or Food.. whatever the Tower decided your character needed to keep limping on. That said, when you hit up your Sanctuary in your home Kingdom, with all Keys in your possession, you would be awarded extra Warriors. When you felt like you had enough Warriors to take on the final battle, you hit the Dark Tower button on the Tower and plugged in what you thought the answer was to the “Riddle of Keys”. If you solved the Riddle, the battle was on. There were several different levels a player could choose, each varying in difficulty. As well, if you won in so many moves, the Tower would give you a rank. The Victory graphic and tune will forever be a part of my personal pop culture collective.

Dark Tower was only produced for one year b/c there was a huge behind the scenes lawsuit with MB over IPR. I think (or I assume) part of the settlement included MB halting production of the game because the game was only sold for one year. Now, if you are lucky and have the money, you can get a game on eBay (shocker). In 2003 I bought my older brother a complete working game for around $175. The following year, I bought myself a broken tower ($50) and the game board & pieces separately ($150). I sent the broken tower to guy in CA and he sent it back good as new ($50). What we didn’t know back in the day was if you left the batteries in the tower, the batteries would rust and corrode the electronics thus ruining your Tower.

I like to think the underlying 80s reference to the keys/riddle aspect of Player 1 is based on MB 1981 electronic board game, Dark Tower. If I am off on this, tisk, tisk because IMHO Dark Tower was the best game ever made and homage should be paid. I mean the guys that came up with it totally got robbed, and the rest of us got screwed b/c as a result of the IPR litigation the game had a very limited retail run.