argument147 【自由女神小组第十三次作业】

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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: 313          TIME: 上午 40:58          DATE: 2007-2-3

The speaker asserts that Whirlwind video games will earn much money in the short future. He cites a survey testing the game trend to support his assertion. However , there are several flaws in the survey while the analysis of the speaker is also unreasonable.

Firstly, the speaker fails to provide the detail information of the sample. His description of sample is " video-game players". However , I want to know what is the  age band of the respondents and where are they from? If the age band of the respondents is not representative ,for example ,the age band of 30, it is meaningless to the  advertising campaign directed at people 10 to 15 mentioned in the editorial. Also , I cannot get information about the location of the respondents . If the respondents are all from a city, the survey cannot represent the players all over the nation. So the game can sell well in a certain city while sell little in other cities.

Secondly , admittedly, I concede that the respondents of the survey represent the player well, many players can't afford the high price of the most up-to-date computers . Usually young people are fond of video games, while they have not yet earn themselves and have not fixed incomes. Although the games run on the most advanced computers are charming , the young players have not enough money to pay for the computers . And  Whirlwind will sell out little never earn profits.

Thirdly, how does the speaker define "a recent survey"? "Recent" is not a precise definition of time .A month is more recent than a year . The recent survey mentioned in the editorial may be already out-dated and is not representative.

To sum , the speaker fail to provide substantial survey to support his assertion and misleads the reader that the game which run on the most advanced computer will sell well.