I've read a short story (forget its name and author) and one other novel ( For the Win by Cory Doctorow) that does what this one does, which is put us into the head of someone who is on the Internet playing a multiplayer game. A lot of the action takes place in the game and the main character is connected to the Internet, playing and interacting with other people, through the game. Despite that, the stakes are high, and real world. The first time I encountered it, I was surprise that it worked. It does in Ready Player One too, though I have to say I tired of it at times and by the end craved for a character who wanted to smell some rain or touch a plant, a real plant. 
 It is the year 2044. I'm 77 and probably not doing well. Most people aren't because of a decades long recession, an energy crisis, the effects of climate change, and the inevitable erosion of rights that is necessary to keep us in line. In this future, you may even become an indentured employee if you fail to pay your bills, which some people consider a good thing, since they'll know where their next meal is coming from. Wade, our main character, has nothing, not even parents. He lives with an aunt who is unkind to him in a trailer stacked on top of other trailers. They share the trailer with a dozen or so people, so Wade spends a lot of time in a hidden spot away from the trailer where he connects to the Internet and a game world called OASIS. His public high school is there and he attends class via an avatar. That's about it, because he has no money, but it is better than real life in the trailer. 
 Here's what changes everything: Wade is a gunter, which means he's obsessed by a game within OASIS. The winner gets the fortune of the man, James Halliday, who created OASIS. The winner also gets ownership of OASIS. It's a mighty fortune because millions of the world's people in 2044 tune out the world by plugging in. 
 The book is a page turner, for a time, because for years no one's been successful at the game within the game - there are 3 keys that unlock 3 gates. Finally, one manages to find one of the keys and enter a gate, and that unleashes a lot of changes in Wade's life. Multiple copies of the key can be won and other gunters follow suit, including ones employed by an evil corporation that will change OASIS forever if it gets control - that sounds more foolish than it is, unless you have even less tolerance for that nonsense than I do. All the gunters hope to be the first to find the 2nd key, then the 3rd, and ultimately the grand prize, known as Halliday's Egg. 
 Halliday's game forces its players to study 1980s pop culture in extraordinary detail, because the knowledge is required to get the keys and through the gates. I remember watching the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off 14 or 15 times in 1987, I think it was, but I was on a special guard duty in the Army and confined to the barracks for 2 or 3 weeks and it was the only movie we had. Whereas Wade and the other gunters do that and more with movies, video games, technology, TV shows, and music - all from the blasted 80s! It was interesting, but even though I was a teenager then, I'd fail. I knew many references, but not like Wade and other gunters, nor would I want to! 
 All that 80s crap amused me for awhile but it eventually took its toll. So did being in the head of a character playing a multiplayer game. 
 I'm amazed it worked most of the time though. I pray that Ernest Cline does something completely different in his next novel, because I can't imagine this would work again. At one point I grew to loath Wade a little, or to at least have serious problems with how much he turned his back on the real world, especially after his own personal fortunates rose a little. All he did is play that stupid game. He also pined away for a girl he met there. Just forget her, I thought.