Argument147 同主题，后天考试了……

白衣笨天使UID: 144754

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: 513          TIME: 0:30:00          DATE: 2006-3-22

This argument is not well reasoned as it stands although it seems well-presented. This arguer makes an arbitrary conclusion that the sales of video games will increase in the next few months just based on a survey's vague statistics. This argument suffers from several logic fallacies and hence, it is incredible. I can not accept his conclusion.

First of all, the arguer does not provide any information about the procedure of the survey and those video players who are asked in this survey. Hence, I have reasons to doubt the samples in this survey are not randomly selected or that the procedure is not strict. If the survey just ask part of the video players or just select the samples in an unstrict procedure, the samples perhaps could not represent the whole group of the video players and video game lovers. Hereby, the result of this survey is not believable. If so, the conclusion based on this survey is not persuasive.

In addition, even if the survey is effective, there is no evidence to show that the extensive advertising campaign to people 10 to 25 years old will be helpful to the sales promotion. First, the survey does not demonstrate that youngers 10 to 25 years old prefer games with lifelike graphics because of no information about the samples. Second, in fact, this argument does not give out any evidence to show that people 10 to 25 years old are most likely to play video games. It is just the arguer's conjecture, without any supports. Besides, even if this age-group are most likely to play video games, the arguer fails to take into account the possibility that this age-group perhaps could not afford to pay the video games just by themselves and hence they have to refer to their parents. If so, the advertising campaign just directed at this age-group may be not helpful.

Furthermore, this argument is weakened because the arguer does not consider and rule out the possibilities that there may be some other video games companies in this market. In that case, even if the younge would like to play video games and they can pay them, it is not sure that they choose Whirlwind video games. Therefore, the arguer's conclusion is too hasty to credible.

Finally, even if there is only Whirlwind in the market of video games, the arguer makes a hasty conclusion that the sales of video games will increase dramatically in just a few months. In fact, there are many elements which will influence the sales of some product, such as the promotion activities, the sale seasons, and so on. It is possible that in the next months the students 10 to 25 years are busy in some examinations and they have no time to play.

To sum up, the arguer draws a groundless conclusion without full evidences. To bolster his conclusion, he should provide more information about the survey procedure and samples selection. And he should make a survey about the market of video games. Without such further supports, this argument is unpersuasive and unbelievable.