拙劣的处女作——Argument147

Argument147

题目：

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.”

提纲：

原文逻辑链：

对玩家的调查得出他们喜欢的游戏特性->W公司新推出了具有这种特性的游戏，并进行了广告宣传->W两年的销售下降会逆转。

攻击点：

1. 调查类错误（样本容量，被调查玩家的年龄）

2. 即便调查结果有意义，但是玩家不一定买（玩家购买力，玩家的硬件配置）

3. 即便新推出的游戏会成功，但整体销售情况不一定改善（新游戏对老游戏产生竞争）

4. 在结尾中捎带其他未被考虑的可能影响销售的因素。

正文：

In this editorial, the author concludes that the sales of Whirlwind video games are likely to increase dramatically in the next few months after a two-year decline. To bolster this conclusion, the editorial’s author cites a survey in which video game players indicated the feature they thought were most important, and then points out that Whirlwind has just introduced several games with the very feature, as well as an extensive advertising campaign directed at people within a certain age group. After a close look at it, the argument, however, suffers from a few fallacies that make the conclusion not so persuasive.

To begin with, the author gives little information about the video game players who took part in the survey, which renders the result of the survey meaningless. First, we have no idea how many players were sampled by the surveyor. It is entirely possible that the number was so little that the result failed to reflect the exact feature most players prefer. What’s more, according to the author, some Whirlwind newly introduced games with lifelike graphics are aiming at people 10 to 25 years old. However, it is very possible that the survey covers players of all ages or another certain age-group instead of players from 10 to 25. Both of these two possibilities will possibly make the newly introduced games a failure, let alone increasing the sales of Whirlwind dramatically.

Moreover, even assume the result of the survey reflect the preference of players aging from 10 to 25 years old, the author makes dubious assumption that these people are willing to purchase video games with realistic graphics. The author overlooked the common sense that most people of this age-group don’t have much income, especially considering the children from 10 to 18, so their purchasing power of not-so-cheap video games is not ensured. Besides, games that provide lifelike graphics require the most up-to-date computers, players would buy such games only if they already have one such high-performance computer. It is likely that most players do not own a computer that meets the strict need. Taken either scenario into consideration, I do not find the author’s argument compelling enough.

Another problem with the argument is that it assumes that successful sales of several games will increase the overall sales of Whirlwind. Even if people will spend money on the newly introduced games, it is very possible that the new ones pose competition for the previous ones. As a consequence, the sales of old ones will decrease considerably. If this is the case, whether the overall sales of Whirlwind video games will increase remains unclear.

In conclusion, the argument is not well supported. To convince me that the sales of Whirlwind video games will increase dramatically in the next few months, the author need to provide clear statistical evidence that (1)many players would be fascinated by these new games with lifelike graphics, and (2)most of them have already possessed a computer that is up-to-date enough to run those games. To better evaluate the argument, other factors that may influence the sales should be taken into consideration, such us services provided for customers, market condition, other competitors, etc.