第二次作业:
TOPIC: ARGUMENT147 - 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."
WORDS: 482 TIME: 01:25:05
In this argument, the arguer concludes that the sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase dramatically in the next few months. To substantiate the conclusion, the arguer points out those video players prefer games that provide lifelike pictures according to a recent survey. In addition, the arguer mention that Whirlwind has just introduced several such games with an extensive advertising campaign directed at people 10 to 25 years old. A careful examination of this argument would reveal how groundless it is.
To begin with, the arguer fails to prove the reliance of the survey. Perhaps only a small group of people or people who all come from the same city attended this survey. Or perhaps only a certain age of group of people took part in this survey. However, they cannot represent the taste of all video games players. Without giving a reasonable explanation, I cannot accept the information brought by this survey.
Furthermore, the arguer provides no evidence that people 10 to 25 years old players will welcome the games that provide lifelike graphics let alone they will purchase it. It is entirely possible that they prefer other kind of video games to these kinds of video games mentioned above. Even assume that they will accept these kinds of video games that require the most up-to-date computers, perhaps the cost of new computer will be beyond their purchasable ability because most of people 10 to 25 are students whose economical supplies are very limited. Without considering and ruling out these and other factors that affect the sales of Whirlwind video games, I cannot take the argument seriously.
Last but not least, the arguer give no reasons that why the sales of Whirlwind video games have declined over the past two years. It is entirely possible that other factors but not the game productions that Whirlwind issued that led to the reduction of the video games’ sale. Perhaps there has been an economy recession these years in video game market and all the video game company suffer the decline of video games. Perhaps the interest of game players has declined and they does not want to cost on the video games any more. Or perhaps the operation of Whirlwind has some deficiency that led to the game sales’ decrease directly. Without investigating other reasons that may cause the decline of the sales of video games, the arguer cannot convince me that the new production will change the present condition.
In summary, the conclusion reached in the argument lacks credibility since the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the arguer claims. To make the argument more convincing, the arguer should provide more information concerning the reliance of the survey to better evaluate the argument. We also need know the reasons that led the increase of the video game sales otherwise the argument is logically unacceptable.