Argument147 [Victors小组]第十五次作业

乳虎UID: 2251211

147The 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."


提纲：
1调查可靠性。
2该游戏需要的电脑不一定普及。
3作者忽略了价格，竞争等因素。

In this argument, the arguer cites a recent survey which indicates that the games providing lifelike graphics which require the most up-to-date computers are most popular. In addition, the arguer points out that Whirlwind has just introduced several such games with extensive advertising campaign directed at people 10 to 25. On that basis, the arguer claims that the sales of Whrlwind video games are likely to increase markedly in the next few months. In my opinion the argument does not contain enough evidence to support the claim.

In the first place, a convincing survey should be statistically reliable, unfortunately, the arguer provides no information about the sample size and the procedure for random sample. That forces us to doubt whether the sample size is large enough to be representative to the population. It is possible that the participants of the survey is too little to represent the population. It is equally possible that the participants of the survey is not selected randomly, maybe the people enrolled in the survey happened to be some people who take interest in such games. Unless the arguer prove the survey is statistically credible, he or she can not rely on the result to make some credible claim.

In the second place, even if the survey is statistically reliable, it can not ensure that such game will sale well. Such game require the most up-to -date computer, however, the arguer fails to inform whether such computer is widespread. May be that kind of computer is just exploited but not widespread, rather most people's computer can not support that game. In that case, Although consumers prefer the game, their computer can not support it, which will inevitably influence the sale of such game. Due to the failure of the arguer to take into consider and eliminate that possibility, he or she can not make me take seriously the claim.

Last but not the least, the arguer fails to takes consider other factors which will influence the sale of the game. In fact, there are many factors will influence the sale of the sale except consumers' preference. First, the price of the game must influence the sale of the game. If the price is prohibitively high, even if consumers prefer the game, they will not buy them. Second, if the competitors of Whirlwind exploit similar games even better, consumers will choose the games of the competitors.

To sum up, the arguer commit a series of logical flaws which make it not tenable. In order to strengthen it, the arguer must provide information to prove the survey to be statistically reliable. In addition, the arguer should take account into the number of the very up-to-date computer and other factors which may influence the sale of the game.
Up-to-date 我理解是最新的，不知道合不合适。

[ 本帖最后由 乳虎 于 2007-7-23 23:39 编辑 ]