Hi,

Let's first understand the argument:

Understanding the argument:

1. Action Packed (AP) gaming company developed a game last season, which featured the character Sam Li, which is a popular character.

2. AP has developed a new but similar game for this season. This new game features a new character.

3. The new game is better in a number of parameters than the old game: improved 3-D graphics, enhanced multi-player capability, and dozens of new martial arts

4. However, marketing surveys showed that teenagers were uninterested in this new game, and the game sold very poorly.

So, we are given an anomaly. While the new game is better at a number of parameters than the old game, the new game still fared poorly.

Pre-thinking:

The question stem asks us to find an explanation for the given anomaly. How can we explain this? One way is that there must be some difference between the new game and the old game, which led to the poor performance of the new game. Another way could be that the general preferences of the teenagers have changed.

Let's look at the option statements. However, kindly note that the we need to find a statement such that doubting it explain the given anomaly. Thus, we'll negate the option statements given and see if that explains the anomaly.

Analysis of Answer Choices:

(A)Teenagers make purchasing decisions based on the technological merits of video games, not the name recognition of the games’ main characters. - Let's negate this.

Negation: Teenagers make purchasing decisions based not on the technological merits of video games, but on the name recognition of the games’ main characters

Is there a difference between the name recognition of the main characters of the two games? The answer is Yes. The new game didn't have a popular character unlike old game. This explain the low sales of new game. Therefore, this option is correct.


(B)Buyers of video games prefer to purchase games based on popular movies. - Negating this:

Negation: Buyers of video games do not prefer to purchase games based on popular movies

This means that old game (based on a character of movie) should not have sold much better than new movie. This negation actually goes against the argument, rather than explaining it. Therefore, Incorrect.

(C)The Fist of Awe series of movies was extremely popular with teenagers who regularly purchase video games. - We can see that negating this will also make it against the argument. Therefore, incorrect.

(D)Technological improvement from one video game to the next does not guarantee a corresponding increase in sales. - Negating this will again imply that the sales of new game should have been higher than old game. This is against the argument. Therefore, incorrect.

(E)The successful video game may have benefited from advertising associated with the Fist of Awe movies, a benefit the failed video game did not have. - This option explains the anamoly as it is. Obviously, when we negate it, we'll land up with something that does not serve our purpose.

Hope this helps

Thanks,
Chiranjeev
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Thank you! This response hit home for me. I had the confusion with the question stem as well. What the question is really asking is "The passage suggests that the Action-Packed Gaming company's new game was not successful because the company incorrectly assumed which of the following?" I kept thinking that the question was asking what explains the conclusion and as a result looked for things that explained the decrease in sale. However, it's asking what was assumed incorrectly by the makers of the game and that resulted in decrease sales?