How do the Squid Games work exactly?

[Riceball]

After finishing watching S2 of Squid Games, I was thinking to myself, wondering, how do the Squid Games actually work, or more specifically, where does all of the funding come from, and who exactly is behind it all? When you think about it, between the cash prize of over $31 million USD, pay for all of the pink suited people (pulse the black suited guard, the "Host" & the "Recruiter", food for contestants and "employees", uniforms for the players, building the entire facility where evertyng takes place, weapons and ammo for the guards, and so on you're taliking a lot of money. Where does that money come from, the VIPs, both the ones that show up in person and possibly remotely?

 

[ZeroSum]

Proceeds of crime no doubt.

 

[cocomonk22]

My guess is the network used its own revenue and investments to fund the production, and the viewership levels were so high that they are able to continuously reinvest for successive seasons of the game show.

 

[Treadwell]

Sponsorship from World Book Encyclopedia, Turtle Wax, and Rice A Roni, The San Francisco Treat

 

[HeartBlade]

I think there are two possibilities.

One, since Squid Game seems to be inspired heavily by Kaiji, the funding is by a giant corporation (a chasebol) with the players going through these death games for the entertainment of the rich. These are owned by the ruling elite that make so much money, they may see the game as "giving back" while having people put their lives on the line for their entertainment.

Given its prominence and being run annually though, its also very possible that Squid Game is a nationally funded "social program." It is social welfare in the fact that it helps the bottom rung of society by providing them with significant wealth to escape the poverty trap but is also a depopulation/entertainment vehicle that generates revenue through viewership.

Squid Game is based on a dystopian South Korea where the rich and the government are essentially one and the same so the ability to punish the game runners through rule of law is out of the question. We dont know the distribution of rich vs poor but its likely extreme given Squid Game is set in a dystopian capitalist society where the poor are literally used as entertainment and everything is run on money.

 

[Halliwax]

I always thought of it like the crime worlds in Vegas

 

[AnubisGuard]

What I keep wondering is who built all the underground game areas and how they did it. Do they have their own construction company? Did they hire an outside party and then kill them all? Some of the S1 arenas were plausible but as the season went on they got more and more absurd.

 

[Analyzer]

Obviously the show is just for entertainment purposes rather than over-analyzation of how the games are paid for

i.e. does not really matter, the plot pays for what is needed

chalk it up to whatever you would like. Slave labor (literal slave labor)
funding from rich donors, whatever

That said, I did have the same thoughts after watching

 

[ScourgiousJinx]

This is how they work.

 

[modelcitizen]

Smells fishy....

 

[ZeroSum]

I think they get a government grant.

 

[Halliwax]

I still haven’t seen the last episode… zero time for anything

 

[Halliwax]

Finished this late late, last night

Wasn’t the ending I was predicting…

I’m more curious now to see events all over the world, with all the different cultures