Argument147【0806G-Sunbird小组】第3次作业

toumingsenlinUID: 2344846

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: 550          TIME: 00:40:00          DATE: 2007-11-9 23:28:38
In this argument, the author comes to the conclusion that the sales of Whirlwind video games will increase dramatically in the next few months after getting new video games aimed at people from 10 to 25 years old to the market. A basis for the argument is a survey which indicates that players prefer games providing lifelike graphics. An additional reason given in support of the argument is that the age group most likely to play video games is people from 10 to 25 years old. A careful examination of this argument would reveal how groundless it is.

First of all, the author fails to analyze the reasons why sales of Whirlwind declined during the past two years. It is most likely that the company has lost many excellent marketing experts and salesman which leading to decline in business. Also we can not ignore the possibility that the assembling line has become so worn and unreliable to manufacture any new products. Without ruling out these possibilities, the author can not convince me that decline in sales has something to do with marketing policy.  

In addition, the information provided in this survey cited by the author is too vague to be informative. The claim does not indicate who conducted this survey, who responded, their background, or when, where and how the survey was conducted. Lacking information about the number of people surveyed, the number of the respondent, their profile including age, educational background and etc, it is impossible to evaluate the validity of the results. For example, if those who responded are beyond the range of age which Whirlwind aims at, the advertising campaign directed at people 10 to 25 years old would be useless. Because the argument offers no evidence that would role out this kind of explanation, until these questions are answered, the results of the survey are worthless as evidence for the conclusion.

Finally, the author attempts to establish a causal relationship between the increasing sales and introducing new video games to the market. While putting new video games to market is an important element in determining the amount of sales. It is hardly the only one. To establish a general causal relationship between introduction of new products between promoting sales, other factors that could result in progress of sales should be considered and eliminated. For example, whether the price of new video-game products is attractive enough for potential consumers. If the price is too high, it will apparently prevent the sales. It is possible that new games demands up-to-date computers which can not be afforded by aimed customers. Or perhaps the rivals of Whirlwind has introduced similar products before Whirlwind and got a large amount of market share which results in stagnancy of sales. The author's failure to investigate or even consider other possible explanation for promoting sales renders the conclusion based upon it highly suspect.

To sum up, the conclusion reached in the argument lack credibility since the evidence cited in the analysis does not lend strong support to what the author claims. To make the argument more convincing, the author should provide more information about survey which has been done, especially the profile of potential consumers. To better evaluate the argument, we need more concrete evidence that decline of sales is only concerned with marketing strategy.Otherwise the argument is logically unacceptable.