Myth takes on mobile Fortnite in Verizon sponsored stream

TSM streamer Myth played Fortnite for the first time in at least a month yesterday with a little bit of a twist: He played on mobile.

Doing a sponsored stream with Verizon Wireless to promote the new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G phone, the first thing viewers probably noticed was that Myth wasn’t in his normal stream room. Instead, the streamer who got his fame during the Fortnite boom in 2018 was sitting on a park bench in the Verizon Studios that was set up to look like it was outside during a pleasant day’s sunset.

Being in a studio, the production quality of Myth’s stream took on a new level of professionalism, using multiple camera angles and a camera crew. Meanwhile, Myth started the stream by reading off a script to promote Verizon and Samsung’s new phone.

The concept of the stream was that Myth was going to “break myths” that you can’t play high-quality games of Fortnite on a phone using a wireless connection. Of course, to do that, he’d be using Verizon’s wireless connection and a Samsung phone.

Myth’s gaming experience was about as surreal as the studio he was playing in while sitting next to a taxidermy rabbit that was brought onto the set as a part of a fan vote that Myth had on Twitter.

Using a controller and phone connection rig that looked like it could be used to scan tickets at a sporting event, Myth attempted to show viewers that he’s been practicing his controller skills in Fortnite.

As far as brand placement goes, the bottom inch of the stream screen was dedicated to Verizon and Samsung with scrolling messages like “breaking myths about mobile gaming” and “taking console-quality gaming to new places.”

Additionally, Myth regularly made plugs for Verizon and Samsung, giving viewers a few lines here and there that almost made the broadcast seem like a recorded commercial. But his reading of and reaction to his Twitch chat made it clear that he was live.

In 2.5 hours, Myth averaged 32,410 viewers, reaching a total of 86,273 hours watched for his stream, according to Twitch stats website SullyGnome.

While the broadcast was by no means his strongest of the year, it was the best average viewership he’s had in the past two weeks. Myth has had four streams with a better average so far this year, but they were all playing Rust on Offline TV’s streamer server.

This stream wasn’t without its technical difficulties, though. The broadcast was supposed to happen on Feb. 1, but Verizon tweeted out that it was postponing the event due to the “public health crisis around COVID-19—especially in the Los Angeles area.”

The post put in question whether the event would even happen, but a tweet by Myth yesterday confirmed that the show would take place.