Argument13 【0706G－LOVEAW小组】第12次作业

小猫儿UID: 2297873

13.The following appeared in a memo from the chief executive of a video game company.

"We have recently been offered the opportunity to buy the rights to produce a video game based on the soon-to-be-published children's book "Squirrel Power," by Peter Wood. While the cost of the rights is substantial and will place economic constraints on our company in the short-term, there are two reasons that the purchase of these rights will undoubtedly be a wise investment. First, Wood's last three books have been best sellers and the movie based on his first book was highly profitable. Second, the popular characters and story line in "Squirrel Power" will save us time in developing our video game, thereby reducing our costs."

1、  前三本书畅销不代表这一本也畅销，也许读者已经厌倦了作者的写作方式
2、  书和电影赢利不代表游戏也会赢利，也许看这些书和电影的人不打游戏
3、  不一定可以节约成本，作者已经说生产权价格比较昂贵

11:01-11:57  限时失败

It is concluded in the memo that to buy the right of the soon-to-be-published children’s book ”Squirrel Power” to produce a video game is sure to be a wise decision which will bring about tremendous profits. A close scrutiny of the reasoning in the memo reveals it unconvincing.

In the first place, the arguer deduces that this soon-to-be-published children’s book “Squirrel Power” will be popular considering that the last three books of Peter Wood has received a large welcome. However, it is not ensured. It is possible that the readers love the fresh style of writing of Peter Wood, which brings about the significant success of his last three books. However, when readers are used to the same style of writing, there is no attracting points of the soon-to-be-published book “Squirrel Power”, which may ultimately lead to the unpopularity of this book. Moreover, chances are the readers have already been cheesed by the last three books and want to have some different styles of writing. In this case, the readers may turn to other authors’ works in the following days instead of Peter Wood’s. Therefore, it is too opinionated to draw the conclusion that the following book “Squirrel Power” will be popular with the readers without any evidences.

In the second place, even if the books and the movie based on the books are popular, it can not be drawn that the video game will also be popular. Perhaps the readers of Peter Wood’s books are not fond of video games and thus the sales of the video games on the basis of the books can not be ensured. It is also possible that the video game players are, at the same time, dislike the games with the contents of children’s books. In such cases, the planned video game has no buyers neither in the former readers of the books nor in the population of video game players. Without ruling out these possibilities, I can not simply accept that the video game on the basis of the soon-to-be-published book will be popular.

In addition, the conclusion that considering the popular characters and story line can save time in developing the video game, the cost of the game is to be reduced is not the case. To calculate the cost of a plan, one should not only evaluate the time spent on the plan, but it should also be taken integral factors into consideration. For example, the arguer has already shows that the cost of the right of this book is much higher than other original materials. However, the arguer failed to provide the details of the number of this cost involuntarily or on purpose. It is fairly possible that the cost on the right of the book is much superior to that of the cost of time. Without such information, it can not be arbitrarily drawn that the cost of the game is to be reduced.

To sum up, the decision of investing in the soon-to-be-published children’s book “Squirrel Power” is not advisable as it stands.