This is my newbie review of the Upland.me game.
(Check out Upland, a virtual property trading game. If you use this link, Upland will award you and me with a bonus for your first purchase)
First of all, let me reiterate, this is a newbie review. So I probably don't know very much but this is where I am right now about a week or so after having first discovered the game. As of right now, I've invested probably about 20 or so hours into it so I've covered quite a bit of ground in terms of at least figuring things out and being able to form some opinions. These are solely my opinions and thoughts and wanderings so it is what it is.
Basically, here is the premise as I've figured it out so far. Upland is a virtual mirror of sorts of properties and addresses from the globe say from Google Maps. The game takes place in various cities, I believe San Francisco, New York and Fresno right now, more to come until the globe (I suppose) is mapped.
So just as you can travel around, click to click, from one address to another on Google Maps, for the most part Upland works the same except that you have an "explorer" that just wanders somewhat aimlessly around the city but you can force to go to one of your properties and restart his journey (for free) or pay a small fee and travel to any other address on the map from which he begins his aimless journey anew.
The coin of the realm is UPX. You get some for free to start with and you can also purchase more for what looks to be 1% type prices, I'll talk more about that in a minute. The object of the game as far as I can see is simply to become a property Baron or Mogul by purchasing up addresses on the map from which you will acquire "rent" which is automated payments based on the value the game has placed on the property.
There is actually more to the game than that but that's the biggest part of it so we'll focus on that. You're also supposed to be able to earn money in real dollars from the game at some point but I'll mention here that the game is supposedly in Beta so only a handful of people have that benefit and they'll probably get rich before any of us have any access to that part of the game so they can "sell" it up and show how awesome it is that the little guy can get so rich playing a game on the blockchain. (Does that sound like a multi level marketing scheme of sorts? I dunno..)
Here's the deal. I received a bunch of UPX (coin of the realm) to start ($3000UPX I believe it was). I also purchased 20,000 for $19.99. And I won a little bit in some sort of treasure hunt thing when I first got in probably because I was new so it gave me something easy which I'll never see again. (There are "treasure hunts" to acquire coin with but they are very difficult to learn and difficult for newbies to acquire. You'd really need to be spending hours upon hours in the game to really get some benefit from that. I've spent about 5 hours on treasure hunts, researching how to do it, hunting, researching some more because I wasn't sure I was doing it right, hunting, hunting, hunting, etc.. and not one treasure.) So that is a waste unless you are just lucky I suppose or have nothing else to do with your time or you have so many properties in so many areas you can travel to for free to make it easier to get where you need to be to find an active treasure.
Subsequently I was able to purchase 9 little properties for a net worth of $28576. Now if I do nothing at all (except login once a week as you have to do that to keep your stuff) by my calculations I can pretty much double my portfolio about once a year. (That assumes cheap properties will still be available.) So, for the little guy, there is pretty much no way you can compete with the 1%'ers in the game at that rate without spending real money.
In effect, this game is not really for the little guy in terms of being able to make it rich any more than real life is. You'll have to invest money to do that and for that I am pretty much on the fence as to whether it would be worth it or not. In fact, in many ways I think it is mirroring real life.
Now, that said, don't get me wrong if a person invested a ton of time into the game and with a little luck and making smart decisions from buying and selling and trading and getting prizes combined they could build up a pretty good portfolio. But at $1 per 1,000UPX very expensive which is why I term it 1%er money, because to buy your way in to a position of strength without any real clear understanding of what that will return to you in real dollars over time is not going to be cheap. Same as in real life.
I did find an interesting post with a strategy based on various budgets I found compelling and listed in the resources of this blog post.
On the other hand a purchase of $1000 dollars worth of Steller Lumens XLM on Coinbase back in September at .07 sold today is worth over $7500. I believe there are still huge opportunities for the "little guy" to get really rich from investing and smart investing in alt coins. (NOTE: if you follow the COINBASE link and sign up an account there I do get a referral fee. I use Coinbase because I think they are one of the best.)
So, in terms of actually ever making any money on this game, well, doubtful in my case. I think the game still needs a lot of ironing as it seems a little buggy in places such as screen rewrites of where you are on the map. Not so sure it has figured out how to really develop a platform that evens the playing field for everyone but I think it is trying.
Is it going anywhere? No I think it is likely here to stay there seems to be a lot of activity and interest.
Is it fun to play? Not sure. For now I still have too many moments of confusion and frustration but I'm sticking it out. It's a business for me to figure it out and invest my time in things that show strong promise for the future and my ability to get out of the trap of living month to month and bill to bill. And so that is where I am at with it.
I don't plan on spending much real dollars at least for now until I can see a better path of return. Maybe when that happens it will be too late for me. Which is ok. I do intend to continue on, maintaining a presence and building my portfolio as effectively and inexpensively as I can for the limited amount of time I will be investing in the game which is probably about as close to real as you can get for a little guy like me.
Ok, so now that is my review.
Maybe crowdfunding your growth will help:
If you are playing the game please visit one of my properties.
If everyone that reads this and is playing the game visits one of my properties at a cost of $25UPX a visit, maybe I can afford a really nice property somewhere!
Here's what I currently own all in Fresno:
3248 W. Dovewood Ln.
3261 W. Browning Ave.
5551 W. Prospect Ave.
5583 N. Prospect Ave.
5593 N. Prospect Ave.
3261 W. Roberts Ave (currently for sale $12,260UPX)
3387 W Oswego Ave.
557 N. Grantland Ave.
2780 W. Beechwood Ave.
Thanks for reading!
