The following appeared in a memo from the chief executive of a video game company.

“We have recently been offered the opportunity to buy the rights to produce a video game based on the soon-to-be-published children’s book ‘Squirrel Power,’ by Peter Wood. While the cost of the rights is substantial and will place economic constraints on our company in the short-term, there are two reasons that the purchase of these rights will undoubtedly be a wise investment. First, Wood’s last three books have been best sellers and the movie based on his first book was highly profitable. Second, the popular characters and story line in ‘Squirrel Power’ will save us time in developing our video game, thereby reducing our costs.”

The chief executive of a video game company recommends that it would be a wise decision to purchase the rights of a video game based on the children’s book, ‘Squirrel Power’, which has not yet been published. He supports his recommendation by presenting two facts. The first fact is that the last three books of Peter Woods, the writer of ‘Squirrel Power’, have been best sellers and a movie that had been based on his first book had raked in high profits. The second fact is that the cost of developing the video game will be reduced as the popular characters and story line would already be available and therefore, the company will take lesser time to develop the video game. However, none of the facts presented by the arguer succeeds in substantiating the recommendation made in the argument.

The arguer does not provide information about the content of the last three books of Peter Woods. It is likely that those books dealt with some other areas of interest and were written with some other target readers in mind. It is likely that the last three books were suspense thrillers or romantic novels and therefore, they turned out to be best sellers. The same cannot be said about a children’s book being written by the same author. There is a strong possibility that the first book was written by Peter Woods keeping in mind that there is going to be a movie based on it. This would explain the high profits brought in by the movie based on his first book. The target readers for ‘Squirrel Power’ are children and they would not be going out to buy the book; rather the decision to buy the book would rest with their parents who may not be keen on investing money in books related to stories and fictional characters as compared to buying educational books for their children. This line of reasoning puts a big question mark on the success of ‘Squirrel Power’. Therefore, the assumption that ‘Squirrel Power’ would be as successful as the previous books of Peter Woods fails to sound convincing to the reader.

The argument does not convince the reader that the company will save time in developing the video game, thereby saving the cost involved. The story book probably consists only of descriptions of the characters involved. There is no mention of the inclusion of illustrations in the book. Therefore, the illustrators and designers of the company are bound to take a lot of time in designing the characters. There will be a number of revisions before the actual characters are approved for animation. Moreover, how can the characters be termed as popular when the book is yet to be published? The argument does not establish a clear relation between the story of the book and the proposed plan of action in the video game. Therefore, the assumption that the time to develop the game will be reduced due to the availability of the book is grossly flawed.

The statement made by the arguer that the cost of the rights is very high and it would lead to economic constraints on the company contradicts his assertion that the decision to buy the rights would be a wise one. As the book has not yet been released, the arguer is taking a huge risk by assuming that the book and subsequently the video game will be a huge success. A major lacuna in the given argument is that it fails to convince the reader that the company will be able to cover up the money invested in buying the costly rights of the video game. Therefore, the recommendation made by the arguer is highly unconvincing as he fails to provide evidence that proves that ‘Squirrel Power’ will be as successful as its predecessors.