Verizon Taps YouTube Stars To Demonstrate Working Smartphone Within ‘Minecraft’

In one of the coolest branded projects to happen all year, Verizon has created a working smartphone within the video game Minecraft. In order to demonstrate its creation, the telecom giant turned to two popular YouTube stars–CaptainSparklez and SethBling–who conversed with each other via the in-game phone.

The in-game smartphone is a real, functional cellular device that can connect to Verizon’s network, send and receive video calls, and display web pages. That description may sound like science fiction, but it is possible thanks to the existence of redstone, a Minecraft material that essentially functions as an in-game programming language.

Independent Minecraft players have showed off some truly inspiring redstone contraptions, including a fully-functioning scientific calculator created by SgtGodswordBerserker in 2012. Verizon’s smartphone, which it built using an app called Boxel that translates pixels into Minecraft blocks, might be the most impressive in-game technology we’ve seen so far.

When it came time to share the smartphone with the world, Verizon turned to its two brand partners on YouTube. SethBling is known as one of Minecraft’s foremost redstone experts, while CaptainSparklez, whose main channel has nearly nine million subscribers, is perhaps the most visible personality within the YouTube Minecraft community. In individual videos on their respective channels, CaptainSparklez and SethBling show off Verizon’s smartphone before using it to conduct video calls with one another. CaptainSparklez’s video is embedded below, and SethBling’s can be viewed here.

Verizon’s Minecraft smartphone is an example of branded content done right. It is a fascinating development that meshes well with the digital personalities of its two spokesmen. It’s also a working cellphone within a video game. Just stop and think about that for a moment. Pretty cool, right?