Used iPhones with Flappy Bird installed going for $100K on eBay

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Here’s an entertaining little anecdote to start your week off. By now, I’m sure most of you know about Flappy Bird; that it essentially became an overnight success, and that its developer pulled it from the App Store yesterday. But the saga may not be over just yet.

Shortly after the game was pulled on Sunday, iPhones with Flappy Bird installed started appearing on eBay. It’s not too surprising that folks would want to capitalize on its popularity, but what may catch you off guard is that some of them are going for big bucks…

That’s right, eBay user pindrus is selling his used 16GB iPhone 5s with Flappy Bird installed, and at the time of this writing the bidding is up to $99,900.00. It may sound fishy, but the seller is a long-time eBayer and there have been over 70 bids. So it seems legit.

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That certainly doesn’t mean that all of these bids are legitimate, though, and eBay could step in at anytime and put a stop to the madness before the auction ends in 6 days. But for the time being, it certainly seems like this person is going to make the easiest $100k ever.

And this isn’t the only one. A quick search of the site finds at least a dozen iPhones (and a few Android phones) with the Flappy Bird game installed going for well over $50,000. Each seller pitches the device as a collectible, using terms like ‘rare’ and ‘discontinued.’

The game itself was also a major money-maker, reportedly earning developer Dong Nguyen an average of $50k per day in ad revenue before he pulled the plug. It’s unclear why Nguyen removed it, but from the context of his tweets, he disliked his newfound fame.

Update: it appears that, as expected, eBay has stepped in and pulled the above listing, as well as several others.