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The following appeared in an editorial in a business magazine.
"Although the sales of Whirlwind video games have declined over the past two years, a recent survey of video-game players suggests that this sales trend is about to be reversed. The survey asked video-game players what features they thought were most important in a video game. According to the survey, players prefer games that provide lifelike graphics, which require the most up-to-date computers. Whirlwind has just introduced several such games with an extensive advertising campaign directed at people 10 to 25 years old, the age-group most likely to play video games.
It follows, then, that the sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase dramatically in the next few months."
Firstly, the arguer unfairly assumes that unattractiveness of current Whirlwind video games have led to the sales decrease over the past two years. However, the arguer provides no clear evidence to substantiate this assumption. There may be several explanations to the sales decline in Whirlwind video games. Perhaps the local economy is in depression and many video game players purchase fewer games to retrench. Also perhaps Whirlwind encounters powerful competitors whose video games are sold at a lower price with the same or even higher quality. For that matter, maybe the relatively high price for Whirlwind video games contributes to its poor sales. And it is also possible that Whirlwind makes wrong marketing strategies which results in poor sales. Without considering and ruling out the above possibilities, the arguer cannot convince me that the unattractiveness of his company’s video games should be responsible for its sales decrease.
Secondly, the result of the survey is insufficient to indicate that Whirlwind’s newly introduced games will be popular with 10 to 25 years old players. The arguer neglect to specify the age range of the respondents of the survey. If the respondents who express preference to games with lifelike graphics are not young man between 10 and 25, it is highly possible that newly introduced games with lifelike graphics will not catch the eyes of players between 10 and 25.
Thirdly, the arguer must infer that players showing interests in games with lifelike graphics would certainly buy the games. However, actually it may be a more complicated problem when it comes to purchase activities. Players maybe care about plots of video games, their sound effects as well as quality of graphics. Also, a too high price would prevent some players from buying them. In addition, giving that the new games requires advanced computers; players without such computer would have to give up buying them.
Finally, the arguer hastily concludes that sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase significantly in a few months. Nevertheless, the arguer fails to rule out the possibility that the marketing and management strategies may give a rise to poor sales. If so, the new games itself may not guarantee a distinctive sales increase. Moreover, it is highly possible that the sales would not increase greatly in a couple of months since some players are likely to hold a neutron attitude towards new Whirlwind games before they are persuaded that the new games are worthy of the money.