Sometimes selling strange things on eBay for the most reasonable prices – and now you can add mobile Fortnite to that list. Vendors list iPhones with the game installed for reasonable prices. And the best (or perhaps worst) part is that one might be able to pay those prices, because at the moment there is no other way to get them Fortnite on an iPhone.
You may have heard that Apple and Epic Games are in a stand-off over the issue of App Store policies. It’s a clever affair, and I will not bother you with all the details, which you can read here. In essence, Apple has banned Fortnite from the App Store, at least until the legal issue is resolved. As much as I enjoy watching two huge companies ponder over who gets to hold a giant pile of money, the effect this has had on real gamers has been a definite negative: at the moment you can not download Fortnite on an iPhone that does not already have it.
Now an interesting thing has happened. Used iPhones are starting to appear in ads on sites like eBay. They are inconspicuous, except for the fact that they have installed the now-banned game, and the sellers do not hesitate to charge premium for them. Business Insider reports that some of these ads have prices as high as $ 10,000 – yes, you read that right. There’s hustle, and then there’s a scam, and I can not help but think that these ads from one to the other are applied with leave.
When I looked at eBay, I did not see sums quite as ambitious, but there were several phones with four-figure ads – and we are not talking high-end iPhones, but also some older models. The only feature they have in common is an installation of Fortnite. And for the record, it’s not just eBay: I found similar ads on sites like LetGo and OfferUp, with the same prices.
Whether someone buys these phones is another matter – the sellers can be as shy and furious as they want, but that does not necessarily mean that someone buys it. I would be curious to see if anyone actually buys these iPhones. Honestly, I’m a little worried about what’s younger Fortnite Players can persuade their parents to spend a prize like this, without realizing that the detente between the two companies is unlikely to last forever. But that’s me a little protective.
Note that the majority of phones sold this way are iPhones. I saw one or two Androids while I skimmed the ads, but not many, and the ones that were there were not offered for the princess sum that the iPhones apparently charged. While Fortnite is also banned from the Google Play Store, there are ways to get the game on an Android phone without having to go through that store. It can be downloaded from, for example, Epic’s own site. There are a few ads with three-figure prices, but they only seem to be slightly exaggerated from the normal price for used, recent model Androids.
Still, even if someone buys it (and some do not) brutal Buyer regret if and when Apple restarts the game), they have one more problem. Because Apple has banned the game, Epic can no longer support the game and work out updates to keep it running. That means one good iOS update can make the game unplayable, and we’ll soon be one of them.
So yes, if Epic tries to arm itself Fortnite players and Apple and Google who threw the game away was not bad enough, now we have even more people trying to gag Fortnite fans for money. If anyone wants my opinion, I say wait until the legal battle subsides – I highly doubt we’ve seen the latest of the game in the App Store.
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