In the world of virtual real estate, there are many options. There is SAND, there is MANA and there is UPLAND. But a lesser known app has started to take over and so far, shows real promise. The app is called Atlas Earth and can be downloaded from the Google PLAY store for free. I have it for my android device.
My complaint with the above mentioned apps, is that in order to even start the game, you need to buy in. Spending a few bucks to buy some game money and then use that game money to buy virtual real estate is a cop-out for the developer to make money, even without the possibility that the user will. I tried to get SAND and it was too much money to try out for an app. Upland, while free to download, was a bad experience as all of the land that I could find was unavailable to buy. Also with Upland, you may get some free coins to start but the properties I found all needed more than the starting amount. I am a cheap-skate and I don't like the idea of spending money, in any app or website, if there isn't a history of payouts to me. I try to watch scam sites that show a history of payments to "other users" but when it comes to me, can't seem to pay out or I lose internet connection, just to that website, or etc.
Atlas Earth shows real promise.
Unlike the other virtual real estate apps, the moment you first log in to Atlas Earth, you automatically get a parcel of land, for free. That parcel of land can be one of four types of rarities. It can be a Common, Rare, Epic or Legendary. (It kind of reminds me of the rarities in Magic the Gathering...) So each rarity of land, starts a counter at the top of the screen, which starts to compound "rent" from your land. A Common piece of land will earn you $0.0000000011 per second. The Rare does $0.0000000016 per second, the Epic does $0.0000000022 per second and the Legendary does $0.0000000044 per second. Whatever your starting land is, the counter will start to go up and that is how much you are earning.
In order to buy another parcel of land, you need 100 Atlas Bucks. These can be acquired by spending real money and buying more bucks, connecting a credit card so that it tracks your purchases and rewards you that way, or you can even watch ads, every 20 minutes or so. Watching an ad will grant you a reward of 2 bucks. So, you can earn 6 bucks per hour. You can also watch an ad which will multiply your earnings (rent) by 30 for an hour. If you move around the map, in real life, you can find diamonds which allow you to get up to 5 spins after 24 hours and earn more bucks.
Considering that the app is watching your data and your location, it doesn't seem that bad of a deal. But is it a scam?
At this point, it is too early for me to tell. I have been using it for almost 2 months and I have a total of 27 parcels of land. I also have accrued $2.36 as of writing this article. The minimum to withdraw is $5. So I am almost half way there and of course, it was slow to start, but will get faster with the more land you own.
Is it worth it? Well, the hope that it could be worth it, is enough to have me keep it on my phone and let it sit there and find out. It is next to me now, just adding up. There are a lot of positive reviews on the Play store about people getting paid from it, and yet there are a lot of youtube videos of people claiming it to be a scam. So, I can't judge until I get to that minimum amount for a withdraw.
If you want to try it out, I have a referral link and when you buy land, I get a few bucks from that. https://r.atlasearth.com/EOQNFtIntCb
Past that, I really don't see how it could fail, provided you don't put any real money into it.
When I do get paid, I will update this article and some of it.
