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I take an extreme view: Reality should be entirely off-limits, allowed to be observed but not influenced, unless some discovery that makes the available resources in reality infinite (travel to other universes or violations of the laws of thermodynamics).
Anyone who refuses to enter the simulation should be forced.
The reason for this is that in a simulation, keeping everyone happy is simple, since the only finite resource is computational power and even then its allocation can be controlled 100% by a benevolent AI and it's a virtually infinite amount if you harvest the entire local galactic supercluster for fuel.
You don't want any humans or other individualistic beings outside the simulation, because they're competition for resources and a threat, and use vastly more resources per-person than the simulation.
One could argue that life in the simulation is meaningless, but a story feels meaningful and probably even moreso when you're a character in it. The "stories" could be written by an AI, one which is very talented at keepings its characters happy. A good story can't just have everyone be happy and perfect all the time, and the simulation should be treated the same; the difference between the simulation and reality is that negative experiences are kept in check.
Like, if you're the villain of a story and you're defeated by a band of heroes, the consequences to you won't be harsh, even if they're harsh in the story. If you're brutally murdered, it won't hurt much and you'll come back elsewhere in the simulation. If you get sent to prison for years, it's like when a long time passes in a dream; you think a lot of time passed, but it didn't feel like a lot of time and it really wasn't.
