It's no big secret that video game-related content is incredibly popular on YouTube. Recently, as production costs for effects-laden projects have dropped dramatically, we've begun to see users finding big success with short films that exist at the intersection of video game fan videos and short action films.

The prototypical examples in this genre mash-up Trend are re-imaginings of popular video game franchises or tropes. For instance, Corridor Digital drew half of a million views for this film, which depicts what cheat codes would look like in the real world:



Unsurprisingly, these videos are most popular with young men, particularly between ages 13-17, which is a sizable audience.

Here's a playlist of recent including parodies from GamerSpawn and a realistic take on Mario Brothers done in CGI that's been viewed over 3 million times in the past month.



(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here. We've also pulled out some below.)

Perhaps YouTube's king of the short action film is Freddie Wong, whose videos have drawn over 100 million views in the past year. Wong's most recent hit, which is also his most-watched, was posted late last month, but it's already drawn close to 10 million views. It's called "First Person Shooter."



Have you spotted any others?