What is metagame?

Question

What is so called meta-game in StarCraft 2?

What other games have this meta-game?

Answer 1

A meta-game for any game is the way that the game is played. Knowing the metagame is not just knowing the mechanics of the game, but knowing what to expect your opponent to do. It is the relative frequency of each possible tactic, maneuver, build, etc.

One of the easiest to understand examples of this is with Magic: the Gathering. Knowing the metagame in Magic is knowing what styles of decks you might come up against. If you see an Island come out turn one, is he going to be trying to lock you down, draw you out, make evasive creatures, or any variety of things blue can do? You don't know if you don't know the metagame.

In StarCraft, for a more localized example, Protoss should wall off against Zerg, but not against Protoss or Terran. Zerg might 6-pool, and if you don't wall off then he's probably going to beat you. As Protoss continues to wall off and 6-pools continue to be ineffective, Zerg players might stop using that strategy. As Zerg players stop 6-pooling, Protoss players might not wall off as often, making the 6-pool effective again. You have to know the current mindset of other players to make the optimal play. That is the metagame.

The metagame is always evolving for any game, so you have to keep playing or reading about your game to keep up with the current metagame.

Answer 2

I like the wikipedia definition: "In simple terms, using out-of-game information, or resources, to affect one's in-game decisions." So, almost any game could have a meta-game.

In addition to what Strix said, metagame (in a more localized sense) can also be influenced by knowledge of the other players. Perhaps you weren't able to scout someone, but you have watched ten of their replays, and in eight of them, the player used the same strategy. You can prepare to counter that strategy even though you haven't actually gotten any useful info in the current game.

Answer 3

There are 2 sets of knowledge: what you (the player) know and what your avatar (the character you are using) knows. If you use the first set to make decisions then you are said to do "metagaming".

In SC2, as StrixVaria said, you are basically using your own experience to play: you make decisions based on what you have already seen in hundreds of similar matches. You are using your own knowledge, hence you are metagaming.

Metagaming is considered a bad thing in roleplaying games, for obvious reasons (i.e. your avatar should take decisions based on what HE knows not based of what YOU know).

Before you ask: "But my decisions in SC2 are the same of the ones a general could take in a real war. Is a general metagaming when taking decisions during war?". The answer is a big NO, because in real life, of course, there is no avatar involved, hence it makes no sense to distringuish between two sets of information.