The Absurdity Of Fortnite iPhones On eBay
A whole bunch of iPhone and iPad devices were listed on eBay in the past several days with one key feature: Fortnite. In the wake of the Apple / Epic Games battle over in-game purchases, Apple's effectively banned Epic Games and the games they've created from appearing on MacOS and iOS devices for the foreseeable future. The ban effects the app stores that'd normally distribute said games – games like Fortnite.
It would appear that the sudden disappearance of Fortnite from Apple's official App Store has summoned a true sign of the times: iPhones sold for big bucks on eBay because of a pre-loaded app. This particular situation is especially absurd due to the fact that the game requires both an internet connection to function and updates from Epic Games to work in the future.
The people that have already purchased an iPhone or an iPad on eBay (or from any other 3rd-party source) just for the Fortnite onboard will find extreme disappointment in the very near future for one of two reasons.
Possibility 1: Apple continues to deny Epic Games the right to list Fortnite in their App Store. If this happens, the game file loaded to the iPhone or iPad will be unable to get future updates through Apple's app store, from Epic Games. In the not-too-distant future, the Fortnite game file will not function because Epic Games requires that all players have the latest iteration of the game to play.
Possibility 2: Apple and Epic Games reach some sort of agreement and Fortnite is allowed to be listed on Apple's App Store once again. At this point anyone with a compatible iPhone or iPad could download the app once more, and the eBay iPhone will be no different from any other.
The absolute ONLY reason spending massive amounts of cash on an iPhone with Fortnite would make sense is if the buyer is unabashedly rich, has a hankering to play Fortnite on an iPhone or iPad, and hasn't already downloaded Fortnite on the iPhone or iPad they already own. They'd have to care VERY little about the fact that the device won't be special for long, too, because we're barreling toward either Possibility 1 or 2 right now – there's no turning back!