A THEORY

What if they all new each other outside of the game, but as they spent more and more time in the game they lost track of what they were doing and Bada thought he was the only player but they were all players at one point. Bada himself says he doesn't remember his life out of the game, just that he had one, and that he's been trapped for So long (possibly years). So maybe the other guy thinks he's playing a game against Bada to escape? Like they've mixed up all the memories. What if the others that are called the "npc's" and don't know they're in a game is because they went crazy after playing to many run throughs and decided to break their cassettes in order to be 'reset'

I'm making wild accusations