Invitation To The Game

The novel illustrates the power of technology to shape people’s lives for better or for worse. In the future portrayed in the novel, technology, specifically automation, has rendered most human labor unnecessary. The Government is the only entity with power to control the robots so it can decide which people will have a job and which people will be unemployed. It explicitly forbids the unemployed from using technology to keep them under its control. According to Lisse, the prohibition of technology is one of the worst parts of being unemployed: “We were even becoming inured to being prisoners, for the rest of our lives, without our designated area. But the worst was the loss of computer access […].” (25-26). Not being able to learn about current events or communicate with others via computers prevents the unemployed from forming a resistance. Meanwhile, The Government uses technology to surveil the people and enforces the law with the Thought Police.

Furthermore, The Government allows students to access the technology of The Game, but it never explains to them the purpose of the simulation. The teens speculate that The Game is designed to give the unemployed an escape from the dreariness of their everyday lives and to keep them submissive.