Less than a week after it was taken down by its Vietnamese developer, popular game ‘Flappy Bird’ is turning out to be the ‘golden goose’ for mobile phone users looking to dispose their devices.
Many from the city have now decided to sell their handsets equipped with the game for almost double the actual price of the device. A good number of e-commerce sites are flooded by such advertisements, mostly posted by youngsters.
“I have come across online advertisements where an iPhone 4 with ‘Flappy Bird’ installed was being sold for as high as $8,000 (about Rs.5 lakh). Going by that rate, my quotation is quite modest,” said 23-year-old MNC employee Partha Sai, who is willing to sell his used iPhone 4 for Rs.50,000. The phone, would otherwise not fetch him more than Rs.20,000 as per the market price.
“I had posted the ad on Thursday night, and have received two enquiries till now. I hope to close the deal soon,” he added.
There were some who chose to sell their handsets for as high as Rs.80,000, with many confessing that they were indeed trying their ‘luck’.
There are also some who are disappointed with the response. “It has been two days since I posted the ad and due to poor response I had to decrease the price,” said 27-year-old Syed Zainulabuddin Ahmed, an entrepreneur from Malakpet. He had initially quoted Rs.40,000 for his Nexus 5 phone, but subsequently lowered it to Rs.27,000.
“I don’t play the game and do not even like it. But I decided to sell it with the game after coming across on Twitter that phones with ‘Flappy Bird’ game were being sold for high prices,” said Mr. Ahmed.
“A couple of youngsters have approached us saying they wanted to sell their phone with the ‘Flappy Bird’ game for a higher price but we did not entertain them,” remarked a mobile outlet owner from Abids.
