People would have already become desensitized to the "real world" consequences because participating would have already been introducing a consequence that has overtime seemingly has become too unlikely to avoid. People would have started throwing out ideas, shotgun style, and the wildestest ideas, such as trying driving backward. If people would do it in Mario Kart 64, then why not in a high stakes game where there is a huge financial/influential incentive? Movie did the dumb thing and got greedy with product placement galore instead of following the book.