Game shows used to be light-hearted entertainment. Think Family Fortunes. Two families competing against each other to win a car. Maybe a trip to DisneyLand Paris. The contestants were regular people off the streets, competing for a dash of extra enjoyment. Today’s game shows are now a lifeline, a sphere in which human beings battle for survival.

A thousand contestants, reduced to the numbers on their jersey, are pitted against each other in intricate, high-stakes challenges where defeat is not the price of life – but public shaming and the suffocating weight of defeat. And the frontman of this dystopian spectacle? MrBeast.

This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, and it won’t be the last. His Squid Game in Real Life video remains one of his most popular, and it’s not hard to see why – people are captivated by the spectacle of it all. But now, with Beast Games, he’s taken it a step further. More players. More desperation. More money on the line.

It’s the oppression Olympics, where suffering is exploited for the viewer’s entertainment. Contestants are not competing for sport; they’re fighting for their lives. Paying off medical bills. Paying tuition. Escaping debt. One contestant’s tragedy weighs against another’s – who’s more deserving? Who hurts worse?

As a society, we are travelling in the complete wrong direction.  The Hunger Games, Squid Game, Black Mirror – they were supposed to be cautionary tales. Instead, we recreate them, reminding ourselves that if no one is killed then no harm is done. But is that really true?

I am still remembering that Doctor Who episode – in the distant and dystopian future – where the Doctor, Jack, and Rose are left stranded in twisted versions of game shows like The Weakest Link and Big Brother. The show’s format is exactly the same – with the only variation being that voting off results in death. When does our own reality start resembling that future? We are drawing closer to it every day.

The winner of Beast Games earns $10 million – a figure so enormous that it seems excessive. Who actually needs that much money? People who win lotteries traditionally have difficulty managing sudden wealth, most preferring to receive their prizes in controlled, lifelong payments. And yet with this game, the $10 million top prize is not necessarily about the money. It is about the journey, the perseverance, the audience desiring the “right” kind of winner.

Maybe this is all harmless fun. Maybe nobody’s really getting hurt. But then again, that’s what they thought in Squid Game – before the first game began.

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