[quote=@ModeGone]
<Snipped quote by Spanner>
That... sounds very [i]very [/i]strange.  >follows the link
What the bloody Hell happened to that planet?!  How can life survive in such a world?  No wonder the people engage in an escapist fantasy that is VRMMO.  That's Cyberpunk Dystopian tier bullshit.  What the Hell is the point of getting richer if literally all you're doing is making peasants and slaves out of everyone else?  You might as well just set up a money-printer or digitally alter your bank's numbers!  And [i]how [/i]can people afford the VRMMO if they're kept as broke as possible?
[/quote]

Exactly my reaction after reading it for the first time, since they never explained it in the novel and actually had to make a freaking random extra in the manga that no one reads to explain the world.
Still, it seens that the console for the game is pretty easy for some reason, with the pay to win content being the main differential... Guess they wanted the peasants to have at least a little something to console themselves and escape from their shitty reality.