Upland: A Llama-themed Lesson in Game Design
Idly scrolling through my Twitter feed a promoted post stopped me in my tracks. A quirky looking llama wearing a monocle promised me the opportunity to become a “digital landlord”. Oh boy.
The prospect of a “landlord game” may anger some who (like me) live in cities where houses have increasingly become an investment rather than, you know, a home, but being a “digital landlord” is within anyone’s reach, right? Upland seemed to offer escapist renters the opportunity to finally live out their wildest fantasies, becoming not only a home-owner, but a buy-to-let mogul in their own right…
Upland promises big things, most notably a so-called “metaverse” populated by real-world properties from US cities like New York and San Francisco. Essentially, it’s a contemporary riff on the kinds of free to play apps that have been kicking around for years — that and Monopoly. You mess around and buy some virtual houses before hitting against the pay-to-win barriers that are ubiquitous with these games.
The app’s tutorial sets out the core gameplay: you control a “block explorer” — a 2D image that serves as a budget avatar with which to navigate a brightly colored map — and are able to purchase virtual properties with the in-game currency, UPX. You do everything from earning rent to completing collections of colour-coded properties, again, like Monopoly. Once completed, purchases are verified on the EOS blockchain because, well, it’s 2021 so why not.
Beyond its buzzwordiness, Upland’s use of the blockchain means that every purchase is logged in a digital ledger that can’t be altered. Players can “enjoy true ownership of (their) assets forever” — in this “metaverse” at least. This permanent ownership, coupled with a finite supply of property available to purchase, is the appeal of the colourful squares that populate its virtual cities.
In a world of proliferating NFTs (collectable pieces of blockchain-based digital art) perhaps aspiring digital landlords will place a premium on this, even inflating prices. In that case, early adopters would potentially win big on the virtual property market. But, however it plays out, the game would still need to be enjoyable. And it isn’t.
This is where Upland falls down. It proudly refers to itself as a game “where you no longer just play-for-fun, you… PLAY TO OWN.” Based on my (brief) experience playing it, they missed out the fun part entirely. After some introductory tiles I landed in Staten Island; all I could do was drag my icon around a crudely coloured in map, selecting properties at random in the hope I could afford one of them.
As in the real world, the vast majority of properties were way out of a new prospective buyer’s price range, but after some scrolling around I found a designated starter house that I could afford. Thrilled, I check how much rent I’d get from it. Virtually nothing, it turned out. To get much more UPX, I’d have to wait weeks, or else buy the tokens with real fiat currency (a decent virtual house in Staten Island could cost $10-$30).
Upland is not only unenjoyable, but also replicates the ways that real life isn’t enjoyable either. Indeed, it uses real world structures to legitimise its unsavoury pay-to-win business model. One example is the high prices and finite number of properties available, which echoes real-world housing shortages, but the most alarming instance is Upland’s hierarchical approach to new and long-term players, or more likely those who spent fiat currency ingame.
Here’s how it works: only the wealthy qualify to be the eponymous Uplanders who reside in this virtual world. As a new player you’re an immigrant — you have limited rights and have to renew your Upland Visa every 7 days or risk losing your assets. It’s not until you hit a net worth of 10,000 UPX ($10) that you can officially become an Uplander with full rights and property ownership, as well as the ability to trade with others on the open market.
Right. So Upland uses one of the most frustrating aspects of free app game design (effectively locking gameplay features behind a paywall) and rationalises this structure using a financial threshold based visa system. This plays out like an administrative deadzone that resigns you to the status of disenfranchised visitor unless you can demonstrate financial worth. When it comes to emulating real world structures in a virtual environment, it doesn’t get much less fun than that.
Other games get this right
The great thing about virtual environments is their ability to create spaces that are free from the repressive structures that dictate many people’s day to day reality. That’s what makes people flock to titles like Minecraft and Breath of the Wild. This doesn’t mean that apps and games should all have lofty utopian goals, but if you have a blank canvas to create something, why not make it something that offers a genuine opportunity for escapism, rather than a harsh reminder of the adversity that many face?
On the other extreme, some games are great precisely because they hold up a mirror to our world and make us ask difficult questions. Papers, Please developed a cult following for its exploration of the moral grey areas associated with immigration policy through a deceptively simple simulation of what it’s like to be an officer at a border-crossing. Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion takes a more whimsical approach to its satire: you are the titular turnip, accused of evading tax by the local mayor and forced to run errands for him to clear your supposed debt.
Amusingly, Monopoly, from which Upland borrows heavily, was itself intended to demonstrate the shortcomings of capitalism. Clearly Upland’s developers didn’t get the memo as their game is a straightforward attempt to emulate real-world property markets and visa systems, warts and all. I’m sure they and some of their players consider it to be an aspirational simulation for digital hustlers — in future updates players will apparently be able to sell properties for USD and even open virtual businesses — but we can agree to disagree on that one.
To Upland’s credit, it does have a certain unsettling realism to it, in part enabled by its blockchain functionality. However, this realism is used for all the wrong reasons — to rationalise mechanics that line the developers’ pockets, rather than empowering players or encouraging them to reevaluate the world around them.
And the biggest offence of all? I didn’t come across a single llama.
