metagame

metagame noun: a game about games.

Noun

metagame (countable and uncountable, plural metagames)

(countable) A game about games.
- Nomic is a metagame in which players can modify the rules as part of gameplay.
- The textual chessboard at the beginning of Through the Looking-Glass (1871) makes this crystal clear, establishing the whole book as a game—or maybe a metagame—that unfolds through the act of reading, each chapter corresponding to a “move” by Alice’s profoundly overwhelmed pawn.2016 March 12, Matt Margini, “How 'Alice in Wonderland' Influences Video Games”, in The Atlantic
The exploitation of the rules etc. of some other game, at a higher level than simply playing the game normally; a game outside or peripheral to the actual gameplay.
- But usually when people refer to the metagame, they mean things such as unlockables or customizable features. The problem with metagames is that they almost always damage the games they surround. […] Metagames also often create motivations that conflict with the inherent motivations of the core...2012, Keith Burgun, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 98
- The “real-life” activities of EVE community members are a striking example of when a game begins to evolve into another type of simulation. In this instance, the metagame becomes a kind of political simulation that starts to manifest itself more off the screen than it does within the virtual...2015 March 10, Nicholas O'Brien, “The Real Politics of a Virtual Society”, in The Atlantic
The conventions of a gaming community; the characters, weapons, techniques, etc, which are currently considered most viable in multiplayer gameplay, and the best practices for using them.

Synonyms:

meta

Verb

metagame (third-person singular simple present metagames, present participle metagaming, simple past and past participle metagamed)

(roleplaying games) Of a roleplayer, to make use of knowledge while roleplaying that they learned out of character, which their character does not know; often considered a form of cheating.

Examples of metagame in a sentence

But usually when people refer to the metagame, they mean things such as unlockables or customizable features.2012, Keith Burgun, Game Design Theory: A New Philosophy for Understanding Games, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 98:
In this instance, the metagame becomes a kind of political simulation that starts to manifest itself more off the screen than it does within the virtual society.2015 March 10, Nicholas O'Brien, “The Real Politics of a Virtual Society”, in The Atlantic:
Even before the box is open, the metagame has begun.2019, Ellie Dix, Board Game Family: Reclaim your children from the screen, Crown House Publishing Ltd, →ISBN:
But the thing with Elden Ring, as with all the Souls titles before it, is that the metagame – the stuff that goes on around the actual on-screen action – is as important as the game itself.2022 March 8, Keith Stuart, “Pushing Buttons: Get lost in Elden Ring’s maddening, engaging world”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Synonyms of metagame

meta

Forms of metagame

Noun
plural	metagames
Verb
third-person singular present	metagames
present participle	metagaming
past participle	metagamed
past	metagamed

Origin of metagame

From meta- + game.

Questions about metagame

What does metagame mean?: Metagame means a game about games.
How do you use metagame in a sentence?: But usually when people refer to the metagame, they mean things such as unlockables or customizable features.
What part of speech is metagame?: Metagame can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of metagame?: The plural of metagame is metagames.

Words near metagame in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: metagame (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this entry: “metagame.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/metagame. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.