Today, Halliday's Easter egg hunt race had started again, and again, and again...
During the preparations before the race, players could see the identical, standardized, utterly characterless IOI Online Industries "Sixth Man" race cars occupying the very front and center of the grid!
They'd arrived long ago and neatly claimed the best positions at the front and center of the track. The other players who'd gotten there early had no choice but to settle for slightly farther back, along the sides, in more dangerous and disadvantageous little corners.
That was right. In the "OASIS," IOI's players, who were as regimented as an army, were just that arrogant and domineering. Other players wouldn't dare argue with them, even when they were in the right!
But the players had long since gotten used to it.
In fact, wouldn't a race be a lot less fun if it didn't feature those uniform cars, that standard fleet from IOI, the world's second-largest company?
As time passed, more and more cars filled the track. Besides IOI's fleet, there were plenty of other players and vehicles, too: Plymouth "Furies," the A-Team's MPV, the Mach 5 from Speed Racer, a Batman player's 1966 Batmobile, the Interceptor from Mad Max, the Mclaren F1—the ultimate speed machine from The Fast and the Furious—sports cars billed as the most powerful on land, and plenty more...
Since the best lanes up front had already been taken, players who arrived later had to claim spots a little farther back and bring out their beloved rides, then wait patiently for the game to begin.
But for some reason, even though the latecomers hadn't gotten good positions, they didn't seem to care much.
It was simple. The egg hunters and professional racers who'd competed in these races more than once knew perfectly well that