Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Lesson # 44 : BMW's and Bubbles

A few weeks ago my friend was taking a driving lesson and the instructor went about telling him how ten years ago when a man used to buy an Accord the children and others from the neighbourhood would gather around and praise the person for his choice and admire him for the car he had just bought. They would then feel envy and would walk away though their eyes wouldn't stop glancing that wonderful Accord.

Today however, that same person could put a Ferrari on his porch and no one would give the backside of a rat. The point being that it isn't out of the reach of any person to buy anything. With cheap credit available in the form of nearly interest free loans, credit cards and gold loans things have taken a turn for the worse.



Imagine a scenario where a person has the capacity to buy a mid segment sedan. Let's say a Honda City. That would set him back a cool ten lakhs probably. But this dude(Being the dude he is) goes all out and chooses to buy a BMW. The idea is that people are spending on things that are irrelevant. Apart from relatively higher maintenance, higher emis and lower efficiency the BMW isn't really going to add value to this person.

He could have chosen to go in for a Honda. Their cars are engineered for effeciency and performance. Or he could have gone in for a Suzuki. The fundamental flaw in choosing a BMW over a Honda is that firstly the person cannot afford it and yet he's buying it simply because it is a question of prestige and his desires. Tripling his budget and along with it his emi this not so awesome dude could have chosen to do a zillion things with his money apart from buying two thirds of a car with it.



Finally, coming to the conclusion of this entire article we need to understand that by doing such actions, by choosing to overspend, by taking loans we do not need, by spending money we do not have, by full filling desires we have and buying things because of prestige we are all doing our share of creating a bubble in the economy.And obviously when the bubble gets to big it's going to burst and it's going to be bigger than the Sovereign Debt crisis and The Internet Bubble. Worse than the Great Depression and more deadlier than The Black Friday.

So the next time think twice about buying that BMW.

Monday, December 17, 2012

Lesson # 43 : Why the world loves Temple Run

Imangi Studios made a fortune with Temple Run and while Rovio along with Angry Birds competes with Temple Run for the number one spot across platforms be it the android or the istore this is one battle that we'll just have to wait and watch. Angry Birds recently came out with Star Wars and as good and cool as it may look I more often than not choose to play Temple Run whenever I choose to game on my tablet.

The reason Temple Run actually succeeds is on multiple levels. But there are two which I thought are worth mentioning and therefore I am focussing on only those two points through the course of the remainder of this article.


Firstly, imagine this scenario. What are we all doing currently in our life? We are trying to get out of the rat race and we are trying our level best to do it. Now draw a parallel with the game.Ideally what are we trying to do. We are running across an endless maze collecting money and trying to get out of the rat race. So we are basically playing the game on a whole different level. The person running is actually a virtual impression of the person playing and he/she is going to try his/her level best to score the maximum points. And that is another insightful reason into the addiction of this game.

Secondly, what do most of us want? A million dollars, right? And that's what happens when people start out and start playing temple run. Imagine a scenario where you make it to say 20,000 points then you go on and on and on till the time you make your first million. And from there on you go on indefinitely breaking one million after the other. The same is the case with life. Lakshmi Mittal in an interview once stated that earning his first million was the hardest. It was a breeze after that. The creators of the game played with our psychology rather well and triggered the right brain cells.


All said and done is Temple Run a brilliant game? Probably not. Then why does it get downloaded so many times. The answer is as stated above. Imangi has hit upon a goldmine whether they did it by mistake I cannot comment upon that. But what they have managed to create is a wonderful game which plays mindfuck with out brains on multiple levels.

On behalf of Doodle inc
Udit Sabharwal