Upland Review 2021 An EOS-based Blockchain Game

Upland Review 2021 An EOS-based Blockchain Game

Key highlights:

• Upland is an EOS-based blockchain game that allows you to buy virtual property based on a real-world map
• Users can trade, sell, and gain interest from their digital assets
• Similar to Ethereum’s NFTs, an ownership contract on EOS verifies your relation to a specific asset
• The downside is you can’t redeem your digital assets for fiat currency or any other crypto

We’re talking about Upland, the virtual property ownership game where users get to buy, resell and even rent out digital landmarks based on an interactive map of the real world.

While EOS Dynasty is by far the most popular EOS EOS, -3.55%-powered decentralized application, Upland has managed to grow all the way to the 4th spot in the EOS DApp rankings after it was launched in 2019.

Before diving deeper into what Upland has to offers to its players, let’s take a look at the game’s main upsides and downsides.

Pros of Outland:

• A somewhat competitive game even though it’s based on a collectible model
• You can actually buy your real-life house in-game (San Francisco)
• Your digital assets are verifiable on the EOS blockchain
• A passive monthly income can be generated after owning a series of properties in a specific region

Cons of Outland:

• One-way currency, similar to Valve’s Steam
• Poor creativity when it comes to token utility
• Overshadowed by micropayment strategies

Upland gameplay

Basically, the game is a 2d map of the real world, starting from San Francisco, where your avatar explores the map and has the opportunity purchase any property you pass.

Buying a property requires UPX, Upland’s native token build on top of the EOS blockchain. You start with 6000 UPX, and you can purchase 5,000 for $5 using a debit or credit card and even crypto.

Owning land will give you interest based on the value of your property, while you can trade or sell your property in an arbitrary fashion. Moreover, owning more than one piece of land in several areas or owning specific unique properties such as Museums unlock various collectibles that act as passive skills, boosting your monthly earnings.

Obviously, the more land you own, the more UPX you make per month. There are already some strategies with arbitrary incentives on the move, like players buying one piece in a specific block, knowing that whoever wants to make a combo with this block will have to buy this piece from the first user.

Once your avatar reaches level 2, your account is automatically linked to an internal EOS ID, or web3 wallet, and you become an “Uplander”. While it’s a good thing that you don’t have to own your own wallet or know anything about blockchain to play this game, the downside is that your web3 wallet is a custodian wallet controlled by Upland.

Furthermore, you can’t really do anything else with your UPX, since the digital currency is bound to the game and there is no way of redeeming it for fiat or even other cryptos such as EOS.

In some way, it reminds me of Valve’s Steam, where you can input funds, but you can’t withdraw funds, meaning that even if you manage to make a million on the platform, you’d have to spend it on Steam, or in this case, on Upland services.

Tokenomics

Therefore, I’d avoid using the term cryptocurrency for UPX, as it is more of a utility token, even if you have to spend real money to obtain it. There is no free trade or any other form of a marketplace and/or exchange where you could utilize your UPX outside of the game. Purchasing a property in-game will issue an ownership contract to your EOS wallet.

According to DappRadar, there were over 700 users interacting with the game during the last 24h, and they performed a total of 3,203 transactions. The current balance locked in EOS for Upland is about 2,500 EOS, which is worth a little bit over $6k USD.

Conclusion on Upland Review 2021

In general, Upland is a great concept, but the business model here is far from tailored for blockchain adoption. I can think of a thousand different ways how tokens and blockchain infrastructure could be used in a videogame, yet none of them includes a one-way economy.

I’d like to see more regions being addressed by the game developers, particularly Europe. I mean come on guys, not everyone just wants a piece of San Francisco.

Most importantly, we need to see cryptos that allow you to benefit from your digital assets, your in-game items should be able to be tokenized and sold as NFTs , and not the other way around.

Forcing players to part their cash for a specific-use only token seems like a dubious decision in 2020, especially for a firm that claims it utilizes blockchain technology as its selling point.

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