Land

What went wrong in the virtual land market

To design something sustainable, here are the numbers from the last cycle:

• In June 2024, average land prices were ~95% below peak on The Sandbox, ~89% on Decentraland and ~85% on Otherside; by 2026 the drop averaged over 95%.
• Notable cases, compared to the current floor price: a US$ 2.4 million plot on Decentraland (2021) is worth ~US$ 9 thousand; the 576 plots bought for US$ 4.3 million on Sandbox are worth ~US$ 66 thousand; the plot next to Snoop Dogg's, bought for US$ 450 thousand, is worth ~US$ 1 thousand.
• Why: the land was sold as "scarce" in a world with almost no players. It produced nothing, had no holding cost (the speculator sat on it for free) and its price depended on someone paying more later. When the buyers vanished, all that was left was empty land.

Principle of this project: land is worth what it lets you do inside the game (shop, farm, home, view), not its scarcity, and it never grants combat power. Idle land is expensive; land in use pays off.

Land types

The urban and rural plots come from ~10 villages; the alpha has 4 settlements (Lumen, Espelho, Galho-Velho and Ramalta, 20 §5) and Chapter 1 adds Porto Sal, so the quantities need to be redone (20 §12.2).

Total on the shared map (old count, with 6 concessions instead of 40): ~900, versus The Sandbox's 166 thousand. Housing for everyone lives in the instanced houses, which are not NFTs, so that nobody has to buy an NFT to have a home.

How land is distributed

• Periodic auctions, never one giant sale all at once: a batch of new land each season, with a floor price.
• New land only opens when occupancy passes ~85% (plots with buildings and recent activity). Supply follows population, instead of selling an entire map before anyone exists to live on it.
• Land limits: per KYC, at most 3 urban plots, 3 rural plots and 1 concession; per clan, a cap on plots and concessions (and per alliance, see 19), to prevent speculative latifundia. More than one account under the same KYC does not add quotas.
• Map expansions (4 × 4 km blocks, see 04) bring new villages and new plots.

Tax and use (what prevents idle land)

• Monthly maintenance tax, paid in token, proportional to the plot's value (Harberger tax style): the owner declares the land's value; the tax is a percentage of that value, and anyone can buy the land at the declared value. Whoever under-declares to pay less tax risks losing the plot; whoever over-declares pays dearly. This pushes the price toward its use value and ends the idle speculator.
  • Protection (decided): on a plot in active use, the owner has the right to match any offer within 48 hours and keep the plot. Active use is proven by transactions with distinct players (sales, rentals, orders), not by opening the door or standing around; accounts from the same clan, IP or a repetitive pattern do not count.
• Minimum use: with no activity for 60 days, the tax doubles; at 120 days, the plot goes to auction and the owner receives the amount raised minus fees. Exception, "pasture" mode: whoever announces they are away (absence of 7 days or more) suspends the tax doubling and the inactivity count; the plot sits idle, with no auction, and crops and animals pause (see 09).
• An inaccessible plot neither pays nor loses: while the plot is inaccessible (village taken, swallowed by the Pale Mist, see 20 §2), the tax and the inactivity count are suspended until the place is liberated.
• Concession at war: the Harberger rule (buying at the declared value) does not apply to concessions in a contested zone; they only change hands through clan war.
• Golden rule, stated clearly to the player: land can change owners, but only by public rule (purchase at the declared value, auction for inactivity, clan war over a concession), never by death, bug or world event (see 08).
• 50% of the tax is burned and 50% goes to the buyback that pays for the seasons (see 14). No language about land appreciation.

What land produces

• Urban plot: real customers (player foot traffic on the street) for the shop; crafting bonus at the workshop; rental income if the owner rents it out.
• Rural plot: food, wool, leather, bred mounts; raw material that the city buys. Crops follow seasons and weather (see 09), and need care.
• Concession: common materials in volume (iron, stone, wood). Rare materials come only from feats and hard places (20 §7), and every rare material has a smaller alternative source, so nobody can monopolize it. In a contested zone it can be taken in clan war (see 13) if not defended. Land never grants combat power. Mina Velha is the only contested zone at launch, with 6 concessions.
• Buildings on the land are built in the game, by player builders, with player-made materials; this creates demand for several professions.

Rental and partnership

• The owner can rent out the plot (shop, farm) to another player through an in-game contract, with the payment held and released per period.
• Production partnership: the landowner and whoever works the land split the output at an agreed percentage (sharecropping). Someone without the money to buy land can work it and earn.

Early sale (pre-launch)

Decided: there is no sale before the legal opinion. If it ever happens, the least risky form is:

• Sell founder titles for a small quantity (e.g., 10% of the plots in the first region), not the whole map.
• The title gives the right to choose a plot in the first auction and founder cosmetics; the plot is only assigned when the game opens, and it pays tax like any other.
• Only after the legal opinion, with no promise of appreciation, with a refund provided for if the game does not launch the first region, and with the money tied to a published development budget.
• Outside of that, land is not sold before the game exists.

Numbers to calibrate in the alpha

Tax percentage (initial proposal: 0.5% to 1% of the declared value per month), occupancy threshold for opening new land, notice period, per-account limits and plot sizes.

Land by chapter

Each chapter in 25 brings its own plots, distributed in waves by lottery among verified accounts, with a cap per account and per clan per chapter. No pre-sale of land from a future chapter.