Upland players around the world are eagerly awaiting the first opening of the first international city in the game—Rio De Janeiro! This could not be a more exciting time for some players who are seriously trying to get UPX loaded to mint away in Brazil, but not all players are excited about the advent of Rio. There are a few players who believe Upland should stop releasing new cities until all cities are minted out. However, it’s unrealistic to expect Upland to stop releasing new cities until all cities are sold out because Upland must have cities available for new players to be able to afford to mint; some of the properties remaining in older cities may never sell; and, ceasing to open new cities hinders Upland’s progress at creating new partnerships and bringing in more players.
The main reason it is implausible to expect Upland to stop releasing new cities is due to the necessity of Upland having cities where new players can enter the game and mint without spending. The play-to-earn incentive would not be as incentivizing if Upland required new players to pay before they could play. For example, if new players were told they have to spend $15 or more dollars to mint a random property, new players may not be as readily incentivized to start playing Upland as they are currently with the ability to enter the game for free and attempt to earn money from playing Upland. This shows why Upland must keep opening new cities when the minting floors are too high for new players to begin a free play game. When existing cities do not provide a free-play opportunity, Upland has to release new cities to continue increasing its player base.
It’s also necessary for Upland to release new cities because the properties that haven’t been minted may never be minted. This is because properties that haven’t sold already haven’t sold for a number of good reasons. For example, Los Angeles has several unminted properties outside of collection areas and outside of well known areas that cost hundreds of thousands UPX to mint. Not everyone can afford to pay to mint such properties, and even those who can afford it are unlikely to see potential in flipping such properties for gains. Therefore, it’s unlikely that those properties will ever be minted until significant changes occur in society and the metaverse. Due to this, it’s impractical to expect Upland to hold off on new city releases until all cities are minted.
Upland desires to create new partnerships to increase motivation for players to join Upland, and this is yet another reason why it is unreasonable to expect Upland to stop opening new cities until all other Upland cities mint out. In order to create new partnerships, Upland will have to show potential partners that there are already many interested new players entering the game. If there were no new cities in Upland and only expensive properties left to mint, the new player base would likely dwindle to nearly non-existent. New partnerships would be harder to form for Upland if there were a lack of new players entering Upland on an observable frequency. Because Upland wants to continue forming new partnerships, Upland will have to continue to show a thriving existing player base and new players entering the game which would be impossible to do if there were no new cities until all cities mint out.
As nice as it would be to have new players forced to buy up unminted properties before new cities were released, it is simply not in Upland’s or in Upland players’ best interest for Upland to stop new city releases until all cities sell out.
