Ironically I found the megacorp produced movie version much more palatable both because it wasn't stuck on making that which the author liked the only media worth obssessing about, it showed that fans of all eras enjoyed themselves equally in that world. And because it gave more of a human core to Halliday's quests and the plot, rather than it just being about who's more of a fanboy gets rich and gets the girl.

Seeing the book describe how Wade is so great at reciting every line of War Games just took me out of it. Am I supposed to be impressed by this second hand fawning over a different story? Is there even a point to that beyond Halliday/Ernest Cline thinking it's cool?