Econ 120: Squid game.

For this blog post and the relation to economics is everywhere, I have decided to talk about the New series on Netflix called the Squid Game. This show is a Korean-based tv show that takes an exciting yet dark turn detailing and showing what people will do or be willing to give up for money. The characters in the show are desperately scrambling for money and live a pretty harsh life, already fighting off debt. They are all presented with this card with a code written on the back, allowing them to enter into a game to win a large lump sum of money. Long story short, there ends up being a total of 456 players, so with that being the number of players, the person who can win all six of the games will win a total of 45.6 Billion won, which is compared to dollars in America. The most intriguing part to the characters was that the games weren’t challenging. The games were childhood games that they would typically play in elementary school.

The six games were Red light, Greenlight, honeycomb, Marbles, tug of war, steppingstones, and a Korean game known as the squid game. Once the players were told the first game, they thought it was rather silly because it was for kids. What was shocking was the if the players were eliminated, most of them, including myself as the viewer thought that the players would just lose out on the money and get sent home. But No, the elimination meant that the guards who were in control of the game had to kill them. After the first game, out of 456 people, only 215 people could make it out of the game alive. The players ended up terrified after and voted to forget the money and stop the games and go back to their everyday lives, but within two days of returning to their normal lives, they realized living with their debt out on the streets was worse if not just as bad as playing the games. So, they ended up returning to the game, and they had an overall 93 % return rate. This is related to economics because it shows a little how humans will act to meet their needs. The players were willing to risk their lives for that money because they were in desperate need of money, power, and security. I think it also relates to the topic of opportunity costs.