【辉太郎杀G大队】7/17业 Argument147 by MC dragonfly

lmcdragonflyUID: 2601914

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."


In this argument, the author concludes that the Whirlwind video games will increase and reverse the sales decline over the past two years. To support this conclusion, the author cites a survey indicates that the new games introduced by W will meet the need of the market. In addtion, an extensive advertising campaign will also contribute to this sales increasing according to the author. Plausible as it may seem, careful examination reveals that there are critical flaws involved in the line of reasoning, which undermine the validity of the argument seriously.

First of all, the argument is based on unreliable survey. The author fails to provide any detailed information about the survey. The validity of the survey results largely depends on the answers to such questions.
Who conducts the survey and are they objective and authorized? Are the respondents of the survey representative? It is entirely possible that the W company itself conduct the survey and the respondents are limited to the residents of a small distract. Without answering these question, the author can't ensure the reliability of the survey results.

Secondly, even if we recognize the validity of the survey, the author unfairly assumes that people who prefer games that provide lifelike graphics games will buy these kinds of games produced by W. There are may many other reasons involved in consumer's determining which game to buy. As mentioned above, the high requirements for computers of W's new games maybe prevent the consumers from paying out the money. It is entirely possible that the W's new games miss other points of interests of the consumers although they provide lifelike graphics. In absence of more careful analysis, the assumption of the author is unwarranted at all.

Moreover, the extensive advertising campaign targeted at people 10 to 25 years old may not have the intended effect. Perhaps the financial conditions of the young people are not good enough to afford much new games. They are more likely to play some games which don't cost much money. The advertisement also fails to attract the people over the 25, which is possibly a large potential group of consumers of video games. Hence, the sales may not increase so much as anticipated.


Finally, even the company will benefit from the increasing sales of new games, the author fails to account for the truly reason for its decline over the past two years, which make the sales trend reversion doubtful. It is entirely possible that the decline is too large for the new games sales to compensate for. Without considering and resolving these questions, the decline trend will be not be reversed as the author claims.

To sum up, the argument is not so convincing as it seems. To strengthen the argument, more information are required to ensure the validity of the survey the author cited and many deeply analysis should be made before the hasty concluding.