$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!

Squid Game is a South Korean television series developed by Hwang Dong-hyuk and first released on Netflix in 2021. The show centers around a fictional game show in which 456 indebted contestants compete to the death in variants of traditional children's games to win a large cash prize.^[1] The show received critical acclaim and became Netflix's most-viewed show in its first month.^[1] In November 2021, Josh Coulson of TheGamer described Squid Game as a "worldwide phenomenon".^[2]

Jimmy Donaldson created the YouTube channel MrBeast in 2012.^[3] The channel rose to popularity in 2017 for Donaldson's stunts and challenges, which tend to be philanthropic, ambitious, and expensive.^[3][4] MrBeast became one of the most-subscribed YouTube channels, with 75.9 million subscribers by the time "$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!" was released.^[5]

On October 11, 2021, Donaldson published a video on TikTok saying he would recreate Squid Game if the video received 10 million likes, which was achieved.^[1] Work on the video began in mid-October.^[6] YouTuber William Osman was hired by Donaldson to lead an engineering team to create blood squibs to explode with fake blood on a contestant's elimination; Osman was given three weeks to deliver five hundred of the devices.^[7]

"$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!" cost US$3.5 million to produce.^[8][9] The video was sponsored and partially funded by Supercell to promote its mobile game Brawl Stars.^[8][9] $2 million of the budget was spent on sets and production, while the remaining $1.5 million was used for cash prizes.^[5] Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times noted that the video cost $134,600 per screen minute to produce, while Squid Game itself cost approximately $43,500 per screen minute.^[10] Donaldson recreated several sets from the show, including the contestants' bunk room, the tug of war platform, and the indoor playground.^[11][12] Some of the post-production was completed by visual effects company SoKrispyMedia.^[10]

 

"$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!" is a recreation based on Squid Game and is not intended to be a parody, according to PC Gamer.^[9] Donaldson cast 456 contestants, and a $456,000 prize was awarded to the winner.^[13][9] Instead of death, players were eliminated and given at least $2000 as a consolation prize.^[9][13][14] Mirroring the show, the players competed in a series of games, each reducing the number of players. The games were, in order: Red Light, Green Light; the Dalgona game; the marble game; tug-of-war; ddakji; the glass bridge challenge; and musical chairs.^[13][9][5] There were some deviations from the show: Donaldson's game included ddakji as a round, which was featured in the show but not as a game round.^[11] Additionally, the final round was musical chairs instead of the show's titular Squid.^[8][15] The winner of the grand prize was player 079.^[16]

The video was published to the MrBeast YouTube channel on November 24, 2021. The video reached 100 million views within three days^[15] and quickly became one of Donaldson's most-viewed videos.^[17] Brawl Stars saw a 41 percent increase in downloads and a 54 percent increase in revenue within six days of the video's release.^[18] Interviewed at the 2021 Gotham Awards, Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk responded to the video, saying "I loved it, and it helped me to promote the show, too, so I want more people to do it."^[10] Jennifer Bisset of CNET described the re-enactment as "scarily real-looking",^[19] and journalists from Polygon and Vice News described it as "perfect".^[20][21] Reality TV editor Katherine Griffin likened the video to reality television for its style and length, but disapproved of its lack of credits for the editors.^[10] Charles Cameron of Screen Rant praised the video's faithful re-enactment and called it an "admirable homage", but criticized its use of product placement for "ruin[ing] the immersion".^[22]

After the view count of "$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!" surpassed that of Squid Game itself on Netflix, YouTube's former head of creator product marketing, Jon Youshaei, tweeted in praise.^[21][23] He wrote that the video having a higher view count, a shorter production time, and "fewer gatekeepers" than Squid Game exemplified "the promise of the creator economy."^[21][23] The tweet was criticized by publications and Internet users for ignoring the differences between the production of a television series and that of a YouTube video, and for apparently dismissing Donaldson's debt to the creators of Squid Game.^[21][23] Youshaei ultimately deleted his tweet.^[21][23] Critiquing the concept of the creator economy in response to Youshaei, Amanda Silberling of TechCrunch noted how creators who make high-budget videos must continuously increase their budgets such that viewers do not "become desensitized" to their production value and novelty.^[24] As Donaldson has stated that he makes "razor-thin [profit] margins" on his videos, Silberling argued that these increases in expenditure are unsustainable, writing "the success of [the video] may be better news for YouTube, or even Netflix, than it is for Donaldson".^[24] Gita Jackson of Vice News and Hussein Kesvani of Polygon saw the video as exemplary of a "fundamental" problem of YouTube: derivative and unoriginal content which profits from the work of others (e.g. reaction videos);^[20][21] Kesvani described the video as the "logical conclusion of this creator economy".^[21]

Donaldson received criticism from some journalists and the wider online public for a perceived misunderstanding of Squid Game's anti-capitalist themes.^[14][15][20] Jackson called the video "perverse" and a "recreation of the villain's ultimate desire to watch desperate people compete for money purely for his amusement".^[20] According to Silberling, the video lacked the "emotional resonance and suspense" of the show because the contestants faced no risk of punishment for losing.^[24] Tyler Wilde of PC Gamer considered it "hard to declare that $3.5 million spent on a YouTube video and cash prizes is bad, but $21.4 million spent on a Netflix show is good" in light of criticism of the video's large budget, calling it "about as accurate [a recreation] as you can get without actually shooting anyone".^[9]

Matt Pearce of the Los Angeles Times described stylistic differences between the show and the video, such as the replacement of Squid Game's "high-minded social commentary" with "the MrBeast house style of upbeat stunt philanthropy".^[10] Pearce noted the "narrative efficiency" of its extensive use of fast cuts, music changes, and sound effects and graphics in the style of American reality television.^[10] Like Donaldson's other videos, the video uses clickbait marketing and an "outrageously absurd" premise to convince viewers to watch, a style that Donaldson has "pioneered and perfected" according to Amanda Silberling of TechCrunch.^[24]

• Squid Game: The Challenge, a 2023 reality television series

• $456,000 Squid Game in Real Life! on YouTube
• "$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!" at IMDb