In Ready Player One, global warming, an energy crisis, war, famine, and poverty have made the world a bad place, so many people use a high fidelity virtual reality game, the OASIS, as their escape. The protagonist uses his knowledge of 80s video games, movies, and music to try to win a contest that would net him billions of dollars.
The book is generally good, and it could have been great, but it wasn't great. As such, even though I generally liked the book, most of this post is fairly negative. Here is the negativity: