Nab an iPhone with Fortnite installed – for, um, $ 5,000

Ever since Apple banned it Fortnite hit generously from the App Store, you can not play the game on an iPhone or iPad if you have not downloaded it before. Besides, that means you’ll buy the phone from someone else who’s installed it – for, say, a cool 5000 smackers.

“Please help me ride Fortnite !!!!!!” Lorena Nacari wrote with a funny wink on her eBay listing for her son’s Product Red iPhone XR with 64GB, which she says has a copy of Fortnite installed. She placed the proposed bid for opening at $ 5,000. There have been no bids so far, and the listing expires Sunday afternoon. Each winner must pay standard shipping of $ 3.95. “My son agreed when we received a satisfactory offer,” she said.

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The eBay listing, previously reported by Business Insider, marks a predictable, if not stupid, example of the impact that two companies are fighting over money can have on their customers.

Epic’s Fortnite is one of the most popular games in the world. It’s simple yet addictive design, which seats 100 people in a battle of the last man, has imprisoned more than 250 million users, including children like Nacari’s son. Like millions of others, he loves to decorate his avatar with goofy accessories and costumes, and he gets those virtual goodies by paying for money in the game called V-Bucks.

Until last week, when iPhone and iPad owners bought V-Bucks via the app on their device, Apple would record up to a 30% reduction on Epic sales price as standard commission it costs app developers. On August 13, Epic staged a dramatic protest, causing V-Buck prices to drop 20% all over the place, except on mobile phones and tablets. There, if people wanted to buy, they had to pay more. Epic has also inserted code into Fortnite that allows users to directly pay the company, embrace Apple’s commission and thus also get a lower price.

Both Apple and Google Epic stepped out of their respective app stores, saying the company has signed agreements insisting that all in-app purchases go through its commission systems. Epic said it was fighting to push prices lower, and it sued both Apple and Google to make its point further.

The business argument about money has broad implications for the future of app development on Apple and Google services. But it also leaves many Epic fans without appeal, while these three companies are fighting their legal battle generously. Except of course for eBay. The mention of Nacari is not the only one.

Most of the 166 eBay ads on Wednesday acknowledged that their phones were shocked or scratched, and many were for older phones, such as 2016’s iPhone 7, 2017’s iPhone 8 as 2018’s iPhone XR. Some of the more reasonably priced older iPhones went for around $ 500, although their “Buy it now” prices were often $ 1000 or more.

One of the more hopeful vendors is offering a “mint condition” 64GB iPhone X with Fortnite installed for $ 10,000, no $ 9.60 accelerated shipping included. The iPhone cost $ 999 when it was released in 2017, and it currently goes for about $ 400 for a refurbished device. “Fortnite is now away from the App Store and may never return,” the seller wrote.

Nacari, who lives in Miami, presented her $ 5,000 statement mostly as a joke with her son. She promised a light love-hate relationship with Fortnite and said that her favorite game to play with her son is actually Pokemon Go, because it gets them to run outside as they chase the game’s monsters.

If someone bites and buys the phone, Nacari said, some of the money will go to replacing the laptop that accidentally damaged her son, as well as to a new phone for him. And probably some V-Bucks too.

“I will never understand why your avatar dress costs $ 20,” she said. “It’s his favorite thing to do – buy these weird looking shirts. Where’s this shirt? I want a real one that I can wash and fill!”