2025 is only six years from now. There’s no way a matrix-style immersion system could be viable for even research deployment, much less a consumer video game system by 2025. A visor and haptic feedback system that is accessible to the impoverished, like the one in the movie? That is plausible. Regarding the tech/economy context, according to book, by 2045 the US is into the third decade of the Great Recession following a complete collapse of global energy markets and infrastructure. People are living in doublewides and airstreams and using old car batteries and exercise bikes for electricity.
The haptics of the gloves and treadmill are primarily user feedback, rather than input. They can provide input to the system to control their avatars via hand movements, if they only have gloves, or they can use the treadmills, haptic suits, or immersion bays, like Sorrento’s, to provide input. This is demonstrated in the movie during the final battle in which thousands of people are shown fighting in the streets using only their visors and gloves.
In the book, Cline describes the haptic chair and sphere of the immersion bays as molding to and flexing with the body’s movements, stating that “While you were logged in, you could walk or run in any direction and the sphere would rotate around and beneath you, preventing you from ever touching the wall. It was like being inside a giant hamster ball.”
Wade also acknowledges in the book that his movements in the simulation are essentially the only exercise that he or anybody else gets. Given how people play with Wii controllers, Rockband instruments, and DDR mats; I don’t think it’s unrealistic to portray people using haptic gloves and visors as they do in the movie/book.
