Metagames

The term metagame has developed into a conflation of many concepts. The aim of this paper is the discussion of metagames in the sense of 'higher strategies', which are referred to as rule metagames. Rule metagames are prescriptive rules that emerge, through discussion and application of the community, out of the original rules of the game. This paper will initially review the literature that relates to metagames and theorycraft. The described literature was selected based on diversity, rather than the conventional use of terms. This review reveals that metagame notions may generally be understood across five categories: The added, social, material, strategy, and rule metagame. These categories are described and demarcated as distinct. Based on the review and the classification, the concepts of metagame, metagaming, as well as theorycraft and theorycrafting are discussed, to finally arrive at an examination of the ontology of rule metagames through the application of the cybermedia model. This elucidated the ontological differences of rule metagames and games. Through these differences, problematic aspects of rule metagames for research were identified, which must be taken into consideration for future investigations.