iPhones with Flappy Bird Selling for Thousands of Actual Dollars on eBay

It seems that the drama behind the mobile game Flappy Bird—which gained huge popularity in a matter of days, and was recently removed by its creator, Nguyen Ha Dong—is only just starting. Today a post on BGR reports that eBay has a few listings for iPhones with Flappy Bird pre-installed…and that they’re actually receiving bids in the tens of thousands of dollars. That is, in a word, insane.

But, barring hoaxers who are looking to make headlines by bidding on their own listings, there seem to be people out there who think that buying an iPhone 5 with a marginally entertaining game on it for almost a $100,000 is a good idea. Moreover, there are tons of listings for such phones, all asking for crazy-high prices—and at least two others have actually received bids for some unfathomable reason: as of this writing, this iPhone 5S has four bids valued at $5,100, and this one has nine bids at $5,000. Why should these phones get bids when others don’t? And who has this kind of money to spend?  What is happening here?

[A quick aside for anyone who might be actually considering doing this: if you really want Flappy Bird, and you’re not concerned about engaging in piracy, buy an Android phone and Google “flappy bird apk” for like ten seconds. You will probably find a pirated copy of the game and you will have saved many thousands of dollars. You still would be an idiot for buying a phone for one dumb game that was free while it was available, but at least you wouldn’t be as huge an idiot as these people.

An important note: neither I, nor BestTechie, condone piracy in any form. We also do not condone buying a whole phone just to play Flappy Bird. In short, please don’t do any of this, because I’ll cry. Back to the story.]

A report on Reuters about the whole situation says that friends of the game’s creator said that Nintendo sent Dong a warning letter due to the strong resemblance Flappy Bird’s pipes and bird have to those found in the Super Mario Bros. franchise. That said, Nintendo has denied doing so, and has said that it is not considering a lawsuit.

And just in case the news of people needlessly spending thousands of dollars on iFlappPhones weren’t enough to make you lose your faith in humanity, another post on BGR reports that Dong was actually receiving death threats via Twitter after he announced the game’s impending removal. The saddest part, though, is the fact that Twitter death threats over dumb stuff isn’t even all that surprising anymore.

Excuse me while I go bury my head under the covers for a few hours and hope I get abducted by aliens so I can leave all you people forever. I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.