IRL Squid Game competitors complain it was too real, reporting injuries and poor treatment as they fought for $5 million beneath a grinning MrBeast: 'We're all just looking up at the sky, screaming at him like he's god'

Jimmy «MrBeast» Donaldson is a face we're all going to be seeing for the rest of our lives. The world's most popular YouTuber is extending the tendrils of the MrBeast empire far beyond simple merch, and his biggest current project is being bankrolled by Amazon. Beast Games is inspired by both Netflix's Squid Game and the most popular video on his channel, "$456,000 Squid Game in Real Life!", and will see 1,000 contestants competing for a share of a $5 million prize.

Squid Game is one of Netflix's breakout hits, with the second series due at the end of this year, a fluorescent and creepy tale of what desperate people will do for money, and the people who exploit them and watch. The show's twist, which is a minor spoiler though it becomes clear early in the series, is that these childrens' games are deadly, and the losers do not walk away. One of the threads in the series is how different contestants deal with this realisation, and each other, while coping with the degrading and unsafe conditions they're kept in en masse between events.

Beast Games is aiming to be Squid Game without the literal death, but it may have gotten closer to some of those other elements than participants expected. The show was announced in March and applications opened, with 2,000 applicants eventually accepted, a number that was to be whittled down to the 1,000 who would take part in the show proper. The expectations for the kind of games involved were obviously high, with the MrBeast name in latter years mainly associated with wild stunts and feats of endurance, and during the process applicants claimed they were asked if they'd be willing to be buried alive (the subject of an existing MrBeast video), could swim to shore if thrown overboard, or would even travel to space.

Prospective candidates also had to sign a contract that includes a standard waiver about the exertions involved, saying «I understand that such activities may cause me death, illness, or serious bodily injury, including,