Have you ever heard of tomatoes?  They're a fruit.  Except they're legally vegetables.  Because people use them as vegetables, so it makes more practical sense to consider them as such for shipping and tax purposes.

Did you know that strawberries are not berries and bananas are?  If someone ordered a chicken berry salad and it came covered in bananas, you think they'd be happy about it?  They should be fine with it, right?  After all, we can't just define berries anyway we want.

Suppose you were going to a superbowl party.  You're on a low fat diet, so you ask your friend "are their going to be vegetables there"?  He says "sure there will be lots of vegetables".  You get there, and they have french fries, popcorn, corn fritters, and fried pickles.  Hey, they're vegetables aren't they?  Was your friend right?  Did his answer give you useful information?

Are octopi vertebrates?  Well, according to Britain's legal system,  they are.  Because there are things that you legally can do to invertebrates, that you can't do to vertebrates.  And since octopi are so smart, they don't think they should be subjected to invertabrate experimentations.  But, we should be able to do cruel experiments to them, right?  They clearly are not vertebrates.

Then there are issues like transexuality, abortion, death penalty, and so on where how things are defined are subject of great debate and have huge ramifications on our lives.

Point of these examples is we define things differently than the strict dictionary definition ALL THE TIME if there is a practical purpose to it.  I'm sure you wouldn't have to try all that hard to think of how you do this in your daily life.  If we use a strict dictionary definition of sales, we could say things like "Nikolai's pencil puzzles is a bigger selling franchise than Angry Birds".  Are we correct?  Yes, in the same sense that we're correct if we call french fries a vegetable.  Does it provide a useful or accurate picture of the relative popularity of the two franchies?  Totally not.

If our goal is to determine popularity, then it makes complete sense to consider downloads as sales.  To suggest that terms have an absolutely infallible meaning and that defying that will bring the wrath of Webster demonstrates a rudimentary understanding of language and its fluidity.  We can use words however we want as long as there is a common understanding.  Sign, signifier, signified.  Semiotics 101.  There is a whole field of philosophy and literature based on this concept, and it's not as black and white as people in this topic seem to think.  And I can absolutely guarantee that you don't use language in that black and white manner in your actual life.

And that was the OP's whole point.  That even though he is well aware that Pokemon go is not actually being sold, considering them as sales can be useful and give us a better understanding of the franchise's popularity.  And it's actually a fairly good question.  But instead of actually thinking about whether this would have a good practical purposes, people are all like "nuh uh! Dictionary says not to!"  

So, if you can think of a legitimate reason why it would be useful to consider the NX a Sony console, go for it.  I'll support you 100%.

You provide a lot of excellent arguments against your own point here. It's fascinating.

The reason you think this, is because you apparently weren't really following the conversation, and therefore didn't know what my argument actually was.

What's with the strawman arguments, assigning me opinions that I havwn't expressed, and the proceed to attempt to tear those projected opinions down? Can you come with arguments that don't project opinions I don't have onto me?

If it seems the argument is going against itself, perhaps you should pause for a moment, and consider the possibility that you may be misunderstanding it.  And you could even ask for clarification if something seems confusing.

I'll now respond to the things that are applicable to this, and for your sake I'll ignore all of the strawman arguments.

Oh for my sake?  Thank you for being so considerate and merciful.

The reason why we can't call free downloads "sales" is because it doesn't fit what most people mean when they use the word "sale".

Re-ead the actual conversation that you were responding to.  My point was we can change the usage of the word if we so choose.  I specifically said we can, not that we should.  I guess that's why you seem confused.

Has nothing to do with the dictionary or legal definitions (but I will admit that those are also in my favour in this specific case.)

So... you claim that I'm making a strawman argument... yet I argued in your favor of an argument you didn't make?  O_O... I'm legit confused.

This is also why your tomato, banana and vegetable arguments are especially ironic. I'm proposing that we use the definition that makes people understand what you are talking about. You are the one proposing that we use a definition that will leave most people not understanding what you actually mean when you are using the word "sales". Or maybe they will understand what you mean, and then correct you. Those arguments there could almost ad verbatim be used directly against your own point because of this.

No, because the only point I was making is that we can change words if it is practical for the context.  And those examples perfectly illustrate that point.  Please explain how these examples can be used against that O_o.

And there is a reason why I used examples that showed times when it is intuitive to change the definitions, and also times when it is counter-intuitive and done purely for the sake of practicality rather than common understanding.  Might make more sense if you considered them all instead of cherry picking.

You then go on to talk about how we define things different than a dictionairy (or the legal definition. You seem to switch between those depending on which favours your specific argument.)

No I don't just switch whenever it suits me.  If you don't understand the argument, ask, don't make assumptions.  The point of ALL the examples was that words change in different contexts.  Showing that tomatoes are fruits in scientific/dictionary context but are treated as vegetables in a commercial/legal context is a pretty perfect and clear demonstration of my point.  If it makes more sense to change the definition of something for a particular context, then we can do so.  

I wasn't using legal and dictionary definitions interchangeably.  In fact, I was specifically drawing a distinction between them.  And, while I'm not always a perfect communicator, I think that should have been abundantly clear.  If it wasn't, now it should be.

These are part of the strawman arguments, because I haven't said that we should only adhere strictly to dictionary definitions, nor legal definitions.

Uhhhhh... dude.  The point that Cosmicsex was making was specifically that we cannot change the technical definition of the word.  Before you came in, he described that as a "logical falsehood".  I'm fairly certain he was referring to the logical absolute that A cannot equal Not A, but he's ignoring the fact that the label we ascribe to A isn't the same thing as A itself.  Since he specifically adressed logical falsehoods, he was unquestionably arguing that we cannot change the meaning of the word.

And that's the conversation that you jumped into.  So, I naturally assumed that you understood the context of the conversation, and that your post was logically connected to what we were talking about. When you jump into an argument between two sides, it's natural to assume you're defending one of the sides, and not talking about something entirely different.  If you wanted to talk about a different concept entirely, then you posted in the wrong place.

 I think the inference that you were supporting his point of view is a pretty reasonable one.  But, even if we assume for a second that this misunderstanding is totally my fault, then maybe you could just clarify your point instead of accusing me of being intentionally deceptive.  Misinterpetation =/= strawman argument.

Speaking of which, I still have no idea what you're trying to argue, aside from simply arguing against my point for argument's sake.  What are you trying to prove?

If your goal is to talk about popularity, then we already have a word that fits perfectly for the job. It's called... *drumroll* .... popularity. If you want to talk about the most popular gaming franchise, then you say just that, "most popular gaming franchise". I mean, if that was your goal, why try to go to all the trouble of redefining a word (not in the dictionary, but in the consensus of people)? There is also a lot more leeway in the word "popularity", so you are a lot better off using a flexible and vague word like that (prefferably clarifying further on what you mean by it in your specific post/thread) instead of using a word that has a very specific meaning to people, like sales. Or table. Or... you get the point.

Which is a perfectly fair point.  But, sales is generally a metric used to determine popularity or success.  Even if we're talking about most popular game franchise, we're probably going to go right to sales to support our position.  Calling it popularity just pushes the issue back a step, and we're still going to have to address it.

By collapsing downloads into the sales metric, then we only have to use the one metric, instead of having to consider two or more metrics. Bundling them into one category may just make things simpler, and ensure that the amount of content Pokemon actually sold is better represented.  

Besides, the term sales is already vague and includes many things that may not be sales and don't include things that are sales.  Pack in titles are already an issue of contention when comparing games, a huge part of sales (digital sales) are often completely disregarded.  How about Wii Fit U?  If someone bought the pedometer that unlocks the full version of the game, is that a sale?  What about the copy of Kid Icarus I got for free with Uprising?  Ocarina of Time Master Quest and other preorder bonuses?  How should we count episodic games for a franchise? Five sales for the franchise or one?  Collections?  Should we count the Orange Box as a sale for the Portal Franchise, or Half-life, or Team Fortress?  When Capcom bundled DMC4, Dead Rising, and Lost Planet, how do we count that in terms of franchise sales?  What about when Nintendo put their VC games on sale for 30 cents?  Is 30 cents really that much different than giving it away?  What about the NES Mini?  What if there is a buy one get one free sale?  What if I bought Fire Emblem Birthright, and then downloaded Conquest?  However we choose to define sales, we are going to need some degree of clarification anyway, so adding an one additional point to that doesn't make it all that different.  

But I'm not going to talk anymore about that (you can discuss it if you want, but I'm going to ignore it), because that was never my point, and I don't really care to defend it.  Again, for the sake of clarity, my point was not that we should do this.  My point was that we can, and there is an argument to be made for it.  Just not one that I'm going to make.

Finally, I want to thank you for providing another excellent argument against your point (I alluded to it earlier in the post, but the way you summed it up in one sentence was great). We can use words however we want as long as there is a common understanding. By saying sales, but meaning "free downloads" you don't get a common understanding, unless you clarify each time that "By sales I don't actually mean sales, I mean free downloads", and at that point you are, once again better off just saying "free downloads" to begin with. Just like how you were better off using the word "popularity" if you are going to talk about popularity.

Which was THE WHOLE POINT OF THE OP.  The point of the OP was to discuss whether or not we should try to change the common understanding (which we do all the time cause that's how language changes).  That our current understanding of franchise sales ignores the fact that Pokemon Go is selling a huge amount of content that is completely unrepresented, and that in a system where both titles and contents are sold.  Even if you want to argue it didn't sell any copies, it is still definitely selling a large amount of content, and it would probably be good to find a way to incorporate that into our definition of sales, even if counting downloads as the same as sales may not be the best way to do it. 

That's not how language works.  There is no "what it is".  What it is changes based on the context and on society of the time.  Even the word "sale" already has multiple meanings depending on the context.

Ummm, no "What it is" is "What it is", sorry, we are just going to have to disagree on this one. You can play the context cards all you want but there is no hidden context when asking the question that the OP asked.

Not when it comes to language.  To make it simple, imagine there is a rock.  The rock is whatever it is, and we'll agree to that.  However the label we use to describe it "rock" can be changed if we so choose.  We change labels and classifications all the time, and I've given a bunch of examples of that. And I'm sure you can think of tons of examples of words that are contextual or have completely changed over time.   If we want to change sales to mean sales and downloads, we can do so.  I would assume you'd agree that we can change words if we have a good reason.  Right?

As for why we might want to do so, that's not hidden, it's included in the question the OP asked.  Even if no actual copies of Pokemon Go have been sold, there has been a ton of Pokemon Go content that has been sold, by any definition of the word sold you want to use.  It seems pretty reasonable to define this content as "Pokemon Go".   While we don't, and may not ever, know the exact amount of Pokemon Go content sold, there is a clear and obvious relationship between the number of copies downloaded and the amount of content.  So incorporating the number of downloads might give us a better idea of how much of "Pokemon Go" is being sold.

Point is, that since distribution is changing, our terms probably should change accordingly.  There is no reason that "biggest selling" necessarily has to mean "most individual copies".  I'd argue that defining "best selling" simply as the number of individual copies sold is inadequte, and we could probably think of a much better way to define sales.  Counting downloads as sales is one way to do so, albeit maybe not the best. 

Yeah I can see where you are coming from and I especially agree with the bolded part seeing as how I have already said something similar.