Street Fighter on YouTube

As YouTube has expanded it’s offering to video posters, some video posters are getting pretty damn creative AND smart.

A new (probably short-lived) YouTube sensation is a clever re-imagining of StreetFighter using the “annotations” feature to turn it into a sort of “choose-your-own-adventure” and as NewTeeVee says, it’s paying off big-time.

Uploaded last week, YouTube Street Fighter videos have already garnered well over 5 million views, and counting. That’s not just due to gamer nostalgia over the coin arcade classic, or because it’s currently featured on YouTube’s home page. A lot of the views are generated by the way the videos were made.

Aside from being clever, the way in which the videos are linked creates an incredible number of views.  This is great for YouTube and the video producer who are collecting a pretty outrageous CPM:

After the first week it went online, Boivin told me by email, the videos had earned him $5,000 in YouTube advertising revenue.

Unfortunately, it is a total ripoff for the advertiser as viewers spend 10-30 seconds on each page and there is barely time for an ad to pop up, let alone be seen and absorbed.  So, while I totally applaud the creativity and the cashification I wonder how advertisers will be responding…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPQ1XrllZmA&hl=en&fs=1]

Related articles by Zemanta

• Street Fighter as a kind of turn-based YouTube game
• Play Street Fighter With Toys Via YouTube [Ready, Fight!]