Levinator25 gets a paycheck for his Tiger Woods glitch video

Bryan Levi, creator of the "Jesus shot" video. (Photo credit: Korina Schlieper)

Video game publishers generally don't get excited when a customer publicizes a programming glitch in a software release because "it exposes a problem," said EA Sports president Peter Moore. But Bryan Levi got paid for it.

Levi, who goes by the handle Levinator25 on YouTube, recorded the video we wrote about Friday, showing a glitch in the Tiger Woods '08 game.

Since he posted the "Jesus shot" clip last year, it received only a few comments and about 50,000 views -- not very popular by YouTube standards. It wasn't even Levi's most watched video -- that honor goes to a clip of his friend chugging bottles of Ipecac.

But since the EA Sports parody video went viral, now with more than a million hits, it has sent a flurry of viewers to Levi's original video, leaving comments of congratulations and claims that he got "owned" by the game publisher's rebuttal.

"A lot of people are saying that I got owned by them, but I kind of laugh at that because I think it's pretty cool," Levi said.

Neither party took offense to the mutual jabs. In fact, both Levi and EA's Moore could agree on one thing: They think the whole situation is very funny.

"I thought other people would find it humorous, so why not?" Levi said. "And now they got me back. They told me they loved my video."

Levi was really excited to see the golf pro acknowledge and act out his video. Tiger Woods "is always very willing to do something like this," Moore said. "He realizes that marketing is changing."

Woods didn't stop at walking on water either. On Saturday the EA Sports YouTube channel was updated with another video, this one showing the golfer playing with a Rubik's cube and then putting the toy into a hole a few yards away. "Square Peg, Round Hole" has yet to feel the viral buzz, however, with just shy of 2,000 hits since it hit the Web.

Levi, a 21-year-old film and video student at Penn State, wouldn't disclose the amount of money he was paid for giving Wieden+Kennedy, EA's ad agency, the rights to worldwide use of his video, but the video gamer did say he hopes to score a free copy of the new Tiger Woods game in stores Tuesday.

He also plans to continue shooting and posting videos to his YouTube channel once he's able to buy a new video camera -- his old one is broken.

But Levi shouldn't have to wait long. His check should be on the way.

-- Mark Milian

Comments

[Andrew]

That's kind of a nice move on EA's part. Maybe they're not so bad after all :)

[Tyler]

mark, good story dugg