[silvester23]

That's a very interesting point, I think you are probably spot on about why Squid Game seems to resonate with people more.

Funnily enough, the inclusion of so much of the outside world is actually one of my bigger personal gripes with the series. The game itself seems so detached from reality and just formulaic that I cannot suspend my disbelief enough to reconcile that with an outside that, as you say, is so close to our own.

I think for me, such a setting works better if it is mostly self-contained, like The Platform or Cube from 1997.

But I guess that's just a matter of taste. Thanks for sharing your perspective.