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- The real-life game, which cost over $3.5 million to produce, featured 456 players in green tracksuits who competed in various games for the chance to win a $456,000 prize. The contestants were chosen from among his TikTok followers.
- Donaldson’s video, titled “$456,000 Squid Game In Real Life!”, featured games from the original show such as “Red Light, Green Light,” “Honeycomb,” “Tug of War,” “Marbles” and “Glass Bridge.” He also included the Korean “Ddakji” game in place of the deadly brawl that takes place in the show as well as musical chairs instead of the final titular game.
- Unlike in the original show, wherein players who lose are killed, a device strapped under the players’ shirts are triggered to leak brownish liquid to indicate their elimination. All losers, however, were still able to take home money as a consolation prize, with some receiving up to $4,000.
- The video, which has garnered over 133 million views as of this writing, surprised viewers with how well Donaldson was able to recreate the sets of the original Netflix series. He also surprised his viewers by announcing a $10,000 giveaway to a random subscriber who subscribes to his channel before Dec. 1.
- According to Dot Esports, Donaldson broke the record for the most YouTube subscribers earned in a month, bringing his channel to a total of 82.6 million subscribers. He received a weekly average of 2.1 million new subscribers and a daily average of over 300,000 throughout the month of November.