This quote pretty much sums up what life is like for most people living in 2044. The income gap is not so much a gap anymore as it is a gulf separating the extremely rich and completely destitute. Wade, one of the have-nots, lives in a dismal world of poverty and lonliness, and the only time he feels alive or connected is when he is plugged into the virtual reality of Oasis, a simulation of the real world. Although Wade is content living in this virtual utopia, his only real shot at any sort of upward mobility in society is through a puzzle designed by the mysterious creator of Oasis himself. The winner of this puzzle is promised fame and riches beyond compare, and people would kill, quite literally, to solve it.
