This article serves as my entry in the #UplandWealthBuilding Writing Contest. It is a retelling of my experience with building up my wealth in the game Upland.

I have to admit in hindsight it was probably a bit overeager at the start. Thinking I got this easy peasy. I have played monopoly so how hard can this be. And it is true at its core Upland shares a lot of its mechanisms with monopoly. But so do a ton of other games. 

So what does this mean for Upland? Distilled both games may be very similar. But after having played both I can safely say that Upland is its own beast. Similar yes, but it looks and moves in its own way. 

So now let's start off my wealth building journey in the game known as Upland. I joined with the intention of playing as a free to play player. Meaning I would not be putting any money into the game. I will only use whatever starting resources the game provides me with. 

I decided to start my journey in the capital of country music, Nashville. As this was shown to have the cheapest properties of the towns I could choose from. My plan was to buy as many properties as possible, using my starting capital of 6000 UPX. With the lowest listing available in Nashville being listed for 1323 UPX. I thought it would be easy peasy to get three properties, sit on them. Then let the properties accumulate UPX based on the 14,7% APY the building naturally accrues. Then use this money to buy up even more properties and eventually I would rule the world. Well that was the plan in my head at least. I then got a slightly rude awakening when I found that most properties in Nashville did not sell for anywhere close to 1300. Instead a more realistic price was about 10 to 20 times that. 

Feeling slightly bummed out I quickly decided not to let that deter me. I started to look around because surely there were a ton of cheaper properties here, it was only a matter of me finding them. After all the info at the start of the game clearly said that there were FSA properties in the game. FSA stands for Fair Start Act. And the FSA marking is given to certain buildings in the game and you can only buy them if your networth do not exceed 100k.

And after a certain time of looking around at Nashville sure enough I did find a FSA building that even was unminted. Eagerly I moved my traveler closer to it in order for me to be able to buy this property that I thought was a hidden treasure. When my marker arrived, sadly all that ended up happening was I had to pay a fee for visiting the building next door. =( This fee goes to the owner of the building I visited. And it is one of the many ways you can earn UPX in the game. But unless you have a ton of properties people visit regularly. This small fee is not something that will make you rich. Unlike in Monopoly.

But surely this was something that I had done wrong. So I quickly looked up a few guides on how to buy properties in Upland. And there are several very good ones out there. And it all appeared to be very easy indeed. You just click on the building that is listed for sale, dark green. And then click buy. And voila, you now are the proud owner of said property in Upland. 

I now went back to scour the map for cheap green listings. And pretty soon after I found my first one. I eagerly clicked buy. And I was just about to pop up the champagne then a little window pops up instead. Nicely telling me that in order for me to buy a listing on the marketplace I need to be an Uplander. 

And for those of you who do not know, Uplander is a status you get in the game after you have a networth of 10 000 UPX or more. Why is this so, as far as I can tell this is one of Uplands anti bot measures. So sadly this was it for my free to play Upland wealth building experience. 

Was it a complete waste of an evening? No, I would argue it was not. First of al I now know and understand how Upland works. Second, looking at the current state of the game. Then comparing this to some of the older footage I saw in the "how to" videos. I can safely conclude that most properties have had a very nice increase in their value. This tells me that Upland indeed is, or at least has been. A good place to build your wealth. Will it continue to be a good place for investing and building your wealth? I do not know, only the one who lives will find out. 

One thing I do know is that I would not recommend anyone to jump into Upland, thinking it is a free to play game. I would instead recommend they be willing to invest at least $50. This so they are able to buy a few properties from the start.

I hope this article has been useful to you, or at the very least entertaining. =)

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